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421318 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor%20Horta | Victor Horta | Victor Pierre Horta (; Victor, Baron Horta after 1932; 6 January 1861 – 8 September 1947) was a Belgian architect and designer, and one of the founders of the Art Nouveau movement. He was a fervent admirer of the French architectural theorist Eugène Viollet-le-Duc and his Hôtel Tassel in Brussels (1892–93), often considered the first Art Nouveau house, is based on the work of Viollet-le-Duc. The curving stylized vegetal forms that Horta used in turn influenced many others, including the French architect Hector Guimard, who used it in the first Art Nouveau apartment building he designed in Paris and in the entrances he designed for the Paris Metro. He is also considered a precursor of modern architecture for his open floor plans and his innovative use of iron, steel and glass.
Horta's later work moved away from Art Nouveau, and became more geometric and formal, with classical touches, such as columns. He made a highly original use of steel frames and skylights to bring light into the structures, open floor plans, and finely-designed decorative details. His later major works included the Maison du Peuple/Volkshuis (1895–1899), Brussels' Centre for Fine Arts (1923–1929) and Brussels Central Station (1913–1952). In 1932, King Albert I conferred on Horta the title of Baron for his services to the field of architecture.
After Art Nouveau lost favor, many of Horta's buildings were abandoned, or even destroyed, though his work has since been rehabilitated. Four of the buildings he designed in Brussels were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000: the Hôtel Tassel, the Hôtel Solvay, the Hôtel van Eetvelde and the Horta House (currently the Horta Museum).
Life and early work
Victor Horta was born in Ghent, Belgium, on 6 January 1861. His father was a master shoemaker, who, as Horta recalled, considered craftsmanship a high form of art. The young Horta began by studying music at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent. He was expelled for misbehavior and went instead to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. At the Ghent Conservatory, an aula is named after him today. When he was seventeen, he moved to Paris and found work with the architect and designer Jules Debuysson.
Horta's father died in 1880, and Horta returned to Belgium. He moved to Brussels and married his first wife, with whom he later fathered two daughters. He began to study architecture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. He became friends with Paul Hankar, another early pioneer of Art Nouveau architecture. Horta did well in his studies and was taken on as an assistant by his professor Alphonse Balat, the architect to King Leopold II. Horta worked with Balat on the construction of the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken in northern Brussels, Horta's first work to utilise glass and iron. In 1884, Horta won the first Prix Godecharle to be awarded for architecture for a proposed new building for the Belgian Parliament. On his graduation from the Royal Academy, he was awarded the Grand Prize in architecture.
In the years that followed, Horta joined the Central Society of Belgian Architecture, designed and completed three houses in a traditional style, and took part in several competitions. In 1892, he was named head of the Department of Graphic Design for Architecture at the Free University of Brussels, and promoted to professor in 1893. At this time, through lectures and exhibitions organised by the artists' group Les XX, Horta became familiar with the British Arts and Crafts Movement, the developments in book design, and especially textiles and wallpaper, which influenced his later work.
In 1893, Horta built a town house, the Autrique House for his friend Eugène Autrique. The interior had a traditional floor plan, due to a limited budget, but the facade previewed some of the elements he developed into the full Art Nouveau style, including iron columns, and ceramic floral designs. In 1894, Horta was elected President of the Central Society of Belgian Architecture, although he resigned the following year following a dispute caused when he was awarded the commission for a kindergarten on the / in the Marolles/Marollen district of Brussels, without a public competition.
Throughout his life, Horta was greatly influenced by the French architectural theorist Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, whose ideas he completely identified with. In 1925, he wrote: {{Blockquote|Since 1840, the theories of Viollet-le-Duc are a sharp, precise and constructive analysis of each element in architecture, bringing the whole of architecture to its absolute origin – a construction out of which any form of art can emerge.}}
The Town Houses and the beginning of Art Nouveau
Hôtel Tassel (1892–1893)
The major breakthrough for Horta came in 1892, when he was commissioned to design a home for the scientist and professor Émile Tassel. The Hôtel Tassel was completed in 1893. The stone facade, designed to harmonize with the neighboring buildings, was fairly traditional, but the interior was strikingly new. Horta used the technologies of glass and iron, which he had practiced on the Royal Greenhouses of Laeken, to create an interior filled with light and space. The house was built around an open central stairway. The decoration of the interior featured curling lines, modeled after vines and flowers, which were repeated in the ironwork railings of the stairway, in the tiles of the floor, in the glass of the doors and skylights, and painted on the walls. The building is widely recognized as the first appearance of Art Nouveau in architecture.Space Time and Architecture, Sigfreid Giedion, 1941 In 2000, it was designated, along with three other town houses designed soon afterwards, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In designating these sites, UNESCO explained: "The stylistic revolution represented by these works is characterised by their open plan, the diffusion of light, and the brilliant joining of the curved lines of decoration with the structure of the building."
Hôtel Solvay (1898–1900)
The Hôtel Solvay, on the Avenue Louise/Louizalaan in Brussels, was constructed for Armand Solvay, the son of the chemist and industrialist Ernest Solvay. Horta had a virtually unlimited budget, and used the most exotic materials in unusual combinations, such as marble, bronze and rare tropical woods in the stairway decoration. The stairway walls were decorated by the pointillist painter Théo van Rysselberghe. Horta designed every detail including the bronze doorbell and the house number, to match the overall style.
Hôtel Van Eetvelde (1898–1900)
The Hôtel van Eetvelde is considered one of Horta's most accomplished and innovative buildings, because of highly original Winter Garden interior and the imaginative details throughout. The open floor plan of the Hôtel Van Eetvelde was particularly original, and offered an abundance of light, both horizontally and vertically, and a great sensation of space. A central court went up the height of the building, bringing light from the skylight above. On the main floor, the oval-shaped salons were open to the courtyard, and also received light from large bay windows. It was possible to look from one side of the building to other from any of the salons on the main floor.
Horta House and Studio (1898–1901)
The Horta House and Studio, now the Horta Museum, was Horta's residence and office, and was certainly more modest than the other houses, but it had its own original features and equally fine craftsmanship and mastery of details. He made unusual combinations of materials, such as wood, iron and marble in the staircase decoration.
The novel element in Horta's houses and then his larger buildings was his search for maximum transparency and light, something often difficult to achieve with the narrow building sites in Brussels. He achieved this by use of large windows, skylights, mirrors, and especially by his open floor plans, which brought in light from all sides and from above.
Hôtel Aubecq (1899–1902)
The Hôtel Aubecq in Brussels was one of his late houses, made for the industrialist Octave Aubecq. As with his other houses, it featured a skylight over the central staircase, filling the house with light. Its peculiarity was the octagonal shape of the rooms, and the three facades with windows, designed to give maximum light. The owner originally wished to keep his original family furniture, but because of the odd shape of the rooms, Horta was commissioned to create new furniture.
By 1948, Art Nouveau was out of style, the house was sold to a new owner, who wished to demolish it. A movement began to preserve the house, but in the end only the facade and the furnishings were saved by the City of Brussels. The facade was disassembled and put into storage, and many proposals were made for its reconstruction, but none were carried out. Some of the furnishings are now on display at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Maison du Peuple (1895–1899)
While Horta was building luxurious town houses for the wealthy, he also applied his ideas to more functional buildings. From 1895 to 1899, he designed and built the Maison du Peuple/Volkshuis ("House of the People"), the headquarters for the Belgian Workers' Party (POB/BWP). This was a large structure including offices, meeting rooms, a café and a conference and concert hall seating over 2,000 people. It was a purely functional building, constructed of steel columns with curtain walls. Unlike his houses, there was virtually no decoration. The only recognizable Art Nouveau feature was a slight curving of the steel pillars supporting the roof. As with his houses, the building was designed to make a maximum use of light, with large skylights over the main meeting room. It was demolished in 1965, despite an international petition of protest by over 700 architects. The materials of the building were saved for possible reconstruction, but were eventually scattered around Brussels. Some parts were used for the construction of the Brussels Metro system.
Beginning in about 1900, Horta's buildings gradually became more simplified in form, but always made with great attention to functionality and to craftsmanship. Beginning in 1903, he constructed the Grand Bazar Anspach, a large department store, with his characteristic use of large windows, open floors, and wrought iron decoration. In 1907, Horta designed the Museum for Fine Arts in Tournai, although it did not open until 1928 due to the war.
Magasins Waucquez (1905)
The Magasins Waucquez (now the Belgian Comic Strip Center) was originally a department store specializing in textiles. In its design, Horta used all his skill with steel and glass to create dramatic open spaces and to give them an abundance of light from above. The steel and glass skylight is combined with decorative touches, such as neoclassical columns. After Waucquez's death in 1920, the building began to languish away, and in 1970, the firm closed its doors. Jean Delhaye, a former aid of Horta, saved the building from demolition, and by 16 October 1975, because of its connection to Horta, it was declared a protected historical site. Now a museum of a particular Belgian speciality, the comic strip, it also has a room devoted to Horta.
Brugmann University Hospital (1906)
In 1906, Horta accepted the commission for the new Brugmann University Hospital (now the Victor Horta Site of the Brugmann University Hospital). Developed to take into account the views of the clinicians and hospital managers, Horta's design separated the functions of the hospital into a number of low-rise pavilions spread over the park based campus, and work began in 1911. Although used during World War I, the official opening was delayed until 1923. Its unusual design and layout attracted great interest from the European medical community, and his buildings continue in use to this day.
The First World War – travel to the United States
In February 1915, as World War I was underway and Belgium was occupied, Horta moved to London and attended the Town Planning Conference on the Reconstruction of Belgium, organised by the International Garden Cities and Town Planning Association. Unable to return to Belgium, at the end of 1915, he traveled to the United States, where he gave a series of lectures at American universities, including Cornell, Harvard, MIT, Smith College, Wellesley College and Yale. In 1917, he was named Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lecturer and Professor of Architecture at George Washington University.
Later Projects – debut of modernism (1919–1939)
On Horta's return to Brussels in January 1919, he sold his home and workshop on the /, and also became a full member of the Belgian Royal Academy. The post-war austerity meant that Art Nouveau was no longer affordable or fashionable. From this point on, Horta, who had gradually been simplifying his style over the previous decade, no longer used organic forms, and instead based his designs on the geometrical. He continued to use rational floor plans, and to apply the latest developments in building technology and building services engineering. The Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, a multi-purpose cultural centre designed in a more geometric style similar to Art Deco.
Centre for Fine Arts (1923–1929)
Horta developed the plans for the Centre for Fine Arts beginning in 1919, with construction starting in 1923. It was completed in 1929. It was originally intended to be built of stone, but Horta made a new plan of reinforced concrete with a steel frame. He had intended the concrete to be left exposed in the interior, but the final appearance did not meet his expectations, and he had it covered. The concert hall itself is in an unusual ovoid, or egg shape, and is accompanied by art galleries, meeting rooms, and other functional rooms. The building is placed on a complex hillside site, and occupies eight levels, much of it underground. It also had to be designed to avoid blocking the view from the Royal Palace, on the hill just above it.
In 1927, Horta became the Director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, a post he held for four years until 1931. In recognition of his work, Horta was awarded the title of Baron by King Albert I in 1932.
Brussels Central Station (1913–1952)
In 1910, Horta began working on drawings on his most ambitious and longest running project: Brussels Central Station. He was formally commissioned as the architect in 1913, but work did not actually begin until after World War II, in 1952. It was originally planned that the station would just part of a much larger redevelopment project, which Horta had conceived in the 1920s, but this was never realized.
The start of construction was seriously delayed due to the lengthy process of purchasing and demolishing over thousand buildings along the route of the new railway between Brussels' main stations, and then because of World War I. Construction finally began in 1937 as part of the plans to boost the economy during the Great Depression, before being delayed again by the outbreak of World War II. Horta was still working on the station when he died in 1947. The station was finally completed, to his plans, by his colleagues led by Maxime Brunfaut. It opened on 4 October 1952.La rénovation de la gare de Bruxelles-Central – Passion-Trains
Furniture
Horta typically designed not only the building, but also the furniture, to match his particular style. His furniture became as well known as his houses; a displays of his furniture were shown at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris, and the 1902 Turin Exposition of Modern Decorative Arts. It was typically hand-made, and the furniture for each house was different. In many cases the furniture lasted longer than the house. Its drawback was that, since it matched the house, it could not be changed to any other style, without disrupting the harmony of the room.
Later work and personal life
Horta and his first wife divorced in 1906. He married his second wife, Julia Carlsson, in 1908.
In 1925, he was an architect of honor for the Belgian Pavilion at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris, the exposition which gave its name to Art Deco. In the same year, he became director of the Fine Arts section of the Belgian Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1937, he completed the design of his final work, Brussels Central Station. In 1939, he began editing his memoirs. He died on 8 September 1947 and was interred in Ixelles Cemetery in Brussels.
Heritage
Art Nouveau fell out of fashion in the 20th century and many of Horta's buildings were abandoned, or even destroyed, most notably the Maison du Peuple/Volkshuis, demolished in 1965, as mentioned above. However, several of Horta's buildings are still standing in Brussels up to this day and some are available to tour. Most notable are the Magasins Waucquez, formerly a department store, now the Belgian Comic Strip Center and four of his private houses (hôtels), which were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 under the title "Major Town Houses of the Architect Victor Horta (Brussels)":
Hôtel Tassel, designed and built for Prof. Émile Tassel in 1892–93
Hôtel Solvay, designed and built 1895–1900
Hôtel van Eetvelde, designed and built 1895–1898
House and Studio Horta, designed in 1898, now the Horta Museum, dedicated to his work
Honors
1919
Officer of the Order of the Crown.
Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
1920: Officer of the Order of Leopold
1925: Director of the Classe des Beaux-Arts of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium
1932: Created Baron Horta by Royal Decree and given a coat of arms
Horta was commemorated on the Belgian 2000 franc banknote issued from 1994 until the introduction of the euro.
On 6 January 2015, Google Doodle commemorated his 154th birthday.
List of works
1885: Three houses, Twaalfkameren 49, 51, and 53, in Ghent (design)
1889: Temple of Human Passions, Parc du Cinquantenaire/Jubelpark, in the City of Brussels (protected monument since 1976)
1890: Maison Matyn, Rue de Bordeaux/Bordeauxstraat 50, in Saint-Gilles
1890: Renovations and interior decoration of the residence of the patron of the arts Henri Van Cutsem, Avenue des Arts/Kunstlaan 16, in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode (today the Charlier Museum)
1892–1893: Hôtel Tassel, Rue Paul-Emile Janson/Paul-Emile Jansonstraat 6, in the City of Brussels
1893: Maison Autrique, Chaussée de Haecht/Haachtsesteenweg 266, in Schaerbeek
1894: Hôtel Winssinger, Rue de l'Hôtel de la Monnaie/Munthofstraat 66, in Saint-Gilles
1894: Hôtel Frison, Rue Lebeau/Lebeaustraat 37, in the City of Brussels
1894: Studio for the sculptor Godefroid Devreese, Rue des Ailes/Vleugelstraat 71, in Schaerbeek (modified)
1894: Hôtel Solvay, Avenue Louise/Louizalaan 224, in the City of Brussels
1895: Interior decoration of the house of the painter Anna Boch, Boulevard de la Toison d'Or/Guldenvlieslaan 78, in Saint-Gilles (demolished)
1895–1898: Hôtel van Eetvelde, Avenue Palmerston/Palmerstonlaan 2/6, in the City of Brussels
1896–1898: Maison du Peuple/Volkshuis, Place Emile Vandervelde/Emile Vanderveldeplein, in the City of Brussels (demolished in 1965)
1897–1899: Kindergarten, Rue Sainte-Ghislaine/Sint-Gisleinstraat 40, in the City of Brussels
1898–1900: House and Studio Horta, Rue Américaine/Amerikaansestraat 23–25, in Saint-Gilles (today the Horta Museum)
1899: Maison Frison (Les Épinglettes), Avenue Circulaire/Ringlaan 70, in Uccle
1899: Hôtel Aubecq, Avenue Louise/Louizalaan 520, in the City of Brussels (demolished in 1950)
1899–1903: Villa Carpentier (Les Platanes), Doorniksesteenweg 9–11, in Ronse
1900: Extension of the Maison Furnémont, Rue Gatti de Gamond/Gatti de Gamondstraat 149, in Uccle
1900: À L'Innovation department store, Rue Neuve/Nieuwstraat 111, in the City of Brussels (destroyed by fire in 1967)
1901: House and Studio for the sculptor Fernant Dubois, Avenue Brugmann/Brugmannlaan 80, in Forest
1901: House and Studio for the sculptor Pieter-Jan Braecke, Rue de l'Abdication/Troonafstandstraat 51, in the City of Brussels
1902: Hôtel Max Hallet, Avenue Louise/Louizalaan 346, in the City of Brussels
1903: Funeral monument for the composer Johannes Brahms in the Vienna Central Cemetery (in collaboration with the Austrian sculptor Ilse Twardowski-Conrat)
1903: Magasins Waucquez department store, Rue du Sable/Zandstraat 20, in the City of Brussels (today the Belgian Centre for Comic Strip Art
1903: House for the art critic Sander Pierron, Rue de l'Aqueduc/Waterleidingsstraat 157, in Ixelles
1903: Grand Bazar Anspach department store, Rue de l'Evêque/Bisschopsstraat 66, in the City of Brussels (demolished)
1903: Maison Emile Vinck, Rue de Washington/Washingtonstraat 85, in Ixelles (converted in 1927 by the architect A. Blomme)
1903: À L'Innovation department store, Chausée d'Ixelles/Elsenesteenweg 39–51, in Ixelles (converted)
1904: Gym for the boarding school Les Peupliers, in Vilvoorde
1905: Villa Fernand Dubois, Rue Maredret, in Sosoye
1906: Brugmann Hospital, Place Arthur Van Gehuchten/Arthur Van Gehuchtenplein, in Jette (first design; opened in 1923)
1907: Magasins Hicklet, Rue Neuve/Nieuwstraat 20, in the City of Brussels (converted)
1909: Wolfers Jewellers Shop, Rue d'Arenberg/Arenbergstraat 11–13, in the City of Brussels
1910: House for the Dr. Terwagne, Van Rijkswijcklaan 62, in Antwerp
1911: 'Magasins Absalon department store, Rue Saint-Christophe/Sint-Kristoffelstraat 41, in the City of Brussels
1911: Maison Wiener, Avenue de l'Astronomie/Sterrekundelaan, in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode (demolished)
1912: Brussels Central Station (first designs; completed by Maxime Brunfaut and inaugurated in 1952)
1920: Centre for Fine Arts, Rue Ravenstein/Ravensteinstraat, in the City of Brussels (first design; opened in 1928)
1925: Belgian pavilion at the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes of Paris in 1925
1928: Museum of Fine Arts''', in Tournai
Gallery
See also
Art Nouveau in Brussels
History of Brussels
Belgium in "the long nineteenth century"
References
Notes
Bibliography
Bogaert C., Lanclus K. & Verbeeck M. met medewerking van Linters A. 1979: Inventaris van het cultuurbezit in België, Architectuur, Stad Gent, Bouwen door de eeuwen heen in Vlaanderen 4NB Z-W, Brussel – Gent
External links
UNESCO Word Heritage List entry
Victor Horta
Horta Museum
Cupola's Art Nouveau Architecture Gallery One at www.cupola.com
art-nouveau-around-the-world.org Victor Horta
Victor Horta on BALaT - Belgian Art Links and Tools (KIK-IRPA, Brussels)
1861 births
1947 deaths
Architects from Ghent
Barons of Belgium
Art Nouveau architects
Flemish designers
Burials at Ixelles Cemetery
Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium
Victor Horta buildings
Flemish architects
Officers of the Order of the Crown (Belgium)
Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts alumni
Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Ghent) alumni
Academic staff of the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts |
421401 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish%20Junior%20Football%20Association | Scottish Junior Football Association | The Scottish Junior Football Association (SJFA) is an affiliated national association of the Scottish Football Association and is the governing body for the junior grade of football in Scotland. The term "junior" refers to the level of football played, not the age of the players. The closest equivalent terminology would be non-League football in England, the difference being that junior football in Scotland was not similarly integrated into its football league system until 2021.
Founded in 1886, the SJFA is responsible for disciplinary matters within the grade, certain player registration procedures and organising the annual Scottish Junior Cup. Other league and cup competitions are organised by regional committees. The association headquarters are at Hampden Park, Glasgow, which is Scotland's national football stadium. There was an earlier Scottish Junior FA, which was founded in Glasgow in October 1880. This body also ran a Scottish Junior Cup competition during 1880–81 season but appears to have disbanded at the end of that season.
History
The SJFA was formed in Glasgow on 2 October 1886 and the first season's Junior Cup saw 39 clubs take part. Junior football had existed since the early 1880s, initially as separate local associations across Scotland for clubs not in membership of the SFA. This new national association acted as an umbrella for these local junior associations, as well as establishing the Scottish Junior Cup, a national cup competition. The first three winners of the Scottish Junior Cup all joined the SFA and stepped up to senior level. Gradually, a number of junior leagues grew in strength — particularly in Glasgow, where leading clubs drew large crowds. The Glasgow Junior FA, having seen a number of its proposals rejected at SJFA meetings, seceded from the SJFA in 1907 but returned a year later. Further disputes occurred in 1922 over "poaching" clubs and, in 1927, the GJFA was instrumental in the Intermediate dispute which split the SJFA for four seasons. The record number of clubs to enter the Junior Cup was 412 in 1922–23.
The local associations continued to run their leagues until 1968, when the SJFA instituted major reforms. This first phase of regionalisation removed the need for the many local associations, replacing them instead with six regional committees. These six regions — Ayrshire, Central, East, Fife, Tayside and North — still exist, to a certain extent, as divisions in the national league structure and as operators of certain cup competitions.
The last major league reform took place in 2002, with the six regions "merging" to create a three-pronged regional league setup consisting of East, North, and West regions (see "Organisation and regions").
Since the 2007–08 season, up to four Junior sides have been able to qualify for the Scottish Cup. The four teams are the three Superleague winners (West, East and North) and the Scottish Junior Cup winners, all from the previous season. In the 2015–16 season, Linlithgow Rose became the first junior team to reach the last 16 of the Scottish Cup after beating Forfar Athletic. (see "Juniors in the Scottish Cup").
In 2011, the Scottish Football Association created two new operational boards, Professional and Non-Professional, to provide more focused governance in these differing areas of the game. Junior football is represented on the Non-Professional Game Board alongside other organisations such as the East of Scotland Football League, South of Scotland Football League and Scottish Amateur Football Association.
Name
The term "junior" does not relate to the age of players. Football for young players is generally known as "Youth" (up to Under-19) or "Juvenile" (which is to Under-21 level) football. In the late 19th century, membership of the SFA conferred "senior" status on a club and the junior grade developed outside the SFA framework. Today, the senior grade of football in Scotland is played in the Scottish Professional Football League (until 2013 divided into the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League), as well as the six senior non-leagues: the Highland Football League, the Lowland Football League, the North Caledonian League the East of Scotland Football League, the South of Scotland Football League and the West of Scotland Football League. Over time, as various local football associations and leagues — both junior and senior — have risen in strength, or in some cases disappeared completely. Scottish football developed its current pattern with either junior or senior non-leagues taking precedence in various parts of the country with some occasional overlap. Nowadays, membership of the SJFA automatically confers on a club registered membership of the SFA; however, junior and senior non-league clubs still play in separate competitions.
Despite the lesser media coverage the juniors get, many of the club sides are fairly popular, and some of the bigger games (such as the local derbies between Arthurlie and Pollok, and Cumnock Juniors vs. Auchinleck Talbot) can attract attendances in the thousands. Crowds were far bigger in the past (76,000 for the Junior Cup Final in 1951, with nearly 90,000 watching the semi-finals (including a replay) compared to the level of support attracted now.
Organisation and regions
112 clubs are members of Scottish Junior Football Association, comprising: East Region (19 clubs), North Region (33 clubs) in SJFA-administered leagues, as well as 52 West of Scotland League and 8 East of Scotland League teams who have retained their membership or rejoined the SJFA after moving leagues.
Member clubs
East Region (19)
Arbroath Victoria, Blairgowrie, Brechin Victoria, Broughty Athletic, Carnoustie Panmure, Coupar Angus, Downfield, Dundee North End, Dundee St. James, Dundee Violet, East Craigie, Forfar United, Forfar West End, Kirriemuir Thistle, Letham, Lochee Harp, Lochee United, Scone Thistle, Tayport
North Region (33)
Aberdeen East End, Aberdeen University, Banchory St Ternan, Banks O' Dee Juniors, Bridge of Don Thistle, Buchanhaven Hearts, Buckie Rovers, Burghead Thistle, Colony Park, Cruden Bay, Culter, Deveronside, Dufftown, Dyce, Ellon United, Forres Thistle, Fraserburgh United, Glentanar, Hall Russell United, Hermes, Islavale, Longside, Lossiemouth United, Maud, Montrose Roselea, Nairn St Ninian, New Elgin, Newmachar United, Rothie Rovers, Stonehaven, Stoneywood Parkvale, Sunnybank, Whitehills
East of Scotland League (8)
Armadale Thistle, Bathgate Thistle, Harthill Royal, Livingston United, Pumpherston, Stoneyburn, Syngenta [SFA], West Calder United
West of Scotland League (52)
Ardeer Thistle, Ardrossan Winton Rovers, Arthurlie, Ashfield, Auchinleck Talbot [SFA], Beith Juniors, Belshill Athletic, Benburb [SFA], Blantyre Victoria, Cambuslang Rangers, Carluke Rovers, Craigmark Burntonians, Cumbernauld United, Cumnock Juniors [SFA], Dalry Thistle, Darvel [SFA], East Kilbride Thistle, Gartcairn, Glasgow Perthshire, Glasgow United, Glenafton Athletic, Greenock, Hurlford United, Irvine Meadow XI [SFA], Irvine Victoria, Johnstone Burgh, Kilbirnie Ladeside, Kilsyth Rangers, Kirkintilloch Rob Roy, Lanark United, Largs Thistle, Larkhall Thistle, Lesmahagow, Lugar Boswell Thistle, Maryhill, Maybole, Muirkirk, Newmains United, Petershill, Rossvale, Royal Albert, Rutherglen Glencairn [SFA], St. Anthony's, St. Roch's, Saltcoats Victoria, Shotts Bon Accord, Thorniewood United, Troon, Vale of Clyde, Vale of Leven, Wishaw, Yoker Athletic
Note
Club with an SFA Licence
League structure
Currently there are two regional junior league systems: the East Region with a single division and the North Region with two divisions. The top division of each region sits at tier 6 of the Scottish football league system, with a play-off enabling promotion to the Highland League for clubs with an SFA licence.
There was previously a West Region league system which contained 63 clubs at the end of the 2019–20 season, prior to its members leaving the Juniors to join a new West of Scotland Football League in the senior pyramid. 53 of those clubs kept their membership of the SJFA in order to enter the Scottish Junior Cup. A similar move had also greatly reduced the East Region's membership two years earlier when 25 clubs joined the East of Scotland Football League ahead of the 2018–19 season, with a further 20 clubs making the move over the next three years.
Leagues by period
Cup competitions
As well as the local leagues, there are a number of local cup competitions competed for; however, the biggest competition is the Scottish Junior Cup, which every junior club competes for annually, with the final generally held at the end of May. This cup was established in 1886. The final broadcast live on BBC Alba. The cup's sponsor for 18 years, until the start of the 2006–07 season, was OVD Demerara Rum, replaced at the semi-final stage of the 2006–07 competition by Scottish coach operator Citylink. Emirates Airlines sponsored the tournament from 2009–2013 and ETHX Energy was the sponsor for 2015–16. The current tournament sponsor is Macron.
Juniors in the Scottish Cup
The first attempt by the Scottish Football Association to allow Junior representation in the Scottish Cup was voted down in June 2005. In June 2007 however, the SFA did approve changes to the way that all non-league clubs entered the Scottish Cup. The North and South Qualifying Cups for full and associate member clubs in non-league football, which had both sent their four semi-finalists into the main competition, were scrapped and all these clubs now qualified automatically for the first round. In addition, the winners of the East of Scotland Football League, South of Scotland Football League and top two clubs in the Highland Football League all received a bye to the second round, even if that club was only a registered member of the SFA.
Further to this move, allowing registered member clubs to qualify for the Scottish Cup for the first time, it was announced that the winners of the Scottish Junior Cup, North Superleague, East Superleague and West of Scotland Super League Premier Division would qualify for the first round. This process has continued with the winners of the Scottish Amateur Cup qualifying for the first round from 2015 onwards. Girvan still qualified for the Scottish Cup from 2007 as a result of their historic full membership of the SFA. In 2014, they were joined as annual entrants to the competition by Banks O' Dee and Linlithgow Rose who achieved the SFA National Club Licensing criteria. Girvan themselves were awarded a National Club License in June 2016.
If a Junior club does a "double" by winning their respective Superleague championship and the Junior Cup, runners-up do not qualify and the Juniors are only represented by three qualifying entrants. This occurred in the 2007–08 Scottish Cup which was the first competition since the changes as Linlithgow Rose had won both league and cup. Rose performed the best of all three Junior qualifiers in this inaugural season, reaching the fourth round before losing to eventual finalists, Queen of the South. Of the other early entrants, Pollok defeated St Cuthbert Wanderers before taking Montrose to a replay in Glasgow, watched by 1,873 spectators. North champions Culter defeated two East of Scotland League clubs before losing to Highland League side Huntly in the third round.
In the 2008–09 competition, Banks O' Dee achieved the first double figure scoreline by a Junior club, with a 10–0 defeat of Highland League Fort William. This was bettered in the 2016–17 cup by Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic, whose 14–0 defeat of Burntisland Shipyard remains the largest margin of victory by a Junior side in the competition.
Irvine Meadow became the first Junior side to knock out Scottish Football League opposition in 2009, defeating Arbroath in the third round and became the first side to face Premier League opposition when they drew Hibernian in the next round. Linlithgow Rose's defeat of Forfar Athletic in the 2015–16 competition saw them become the first Junior side to reach the fifth round. In 2016-17 Bonnyrigg defeated Scottish Championship side Dumbarton away from home in the third Round.
In the intervening years, Junior clubs have had reasonable success with several clubs defeating Scottish Football League opposition. These results are listed below:
Scotland Junior international team
Juniors also play internationally, with the best players being picked to play for the Scottish Junior international team against other countries' non-league select teams. The Umbro-sponsored Junior International Quadrangular Tournament takes place every two years and is contested between teams from Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man. The tournament is hosted in turn by each country, with matches taking place at the larger junior grounds in the host country, such as Dunterlie Park, Pollok's Newlandsfield and Petershill Park when the tournament was held in Scotland in 2005. The team's most capped player is Bert McNab, of Petershill, who won 12 caps between 1951 and 1955.
The team have been led since 2008 by former Glenrothes, Tayport and Kelty manager, Keith Burgess.
Team history
After the formation of the Scottish Junior Football Association in 1886, officials began to explore opportunities for representative international matches. On receipt of a £17 guarantee, the Lancashire Junior League in England agreed to raise a team, and on 11 May 1889 the first junior international was played at Douglas Park, Hamilton, with Scotland winning 10–1. A return fixture could not be arranged as the Lancashire league could not provide a sufficient guarantee.
On 15 February 1890, Scotland played their first match against Ireland at Hibernian Park, Glasgow. The 11–0 scoreline in the hosts' favour remains a record victory for the Scottish Junior international team. This fixture did become an annual event, and on 14 February 1891 the team travelled to Belfast for their first away match, a 1–1 draw at Ulsterville, the home of Linfield.
In 1894, games against England resumed with a fixture against Birmingham & District Counties F.A. in Leamington. These games continued until World War II, then were revived for a short period in the 1970s. Scotland suffered a record 5–0 defeat in the 1927 fixture at Molineux, Wolverhampton.
Games against Wales began in 1912 with a fixture against a representative side of the North Wales Coast F.A, the first game taking place in Bangor on 13 April, Scotland winning 2–1.
In 1920, the Scottish Junior international side created history by being the first representative football side from Scotland to undertake a foreign tour. In June, a party of 13 players and three officials visited Norway and played three games each in Stavanger and Bergen. The full Scottish national side did not play a match outwith the British Isles until 1929 when they also travelled to Norway.
A game against the Irish Free State was played on 9 March 1929 in Dublin with Scotland winning 2–1 but regular games against a Republic of Ireland side did not begin until 1947. The first game in this series was played at Dalymount Park, Dublin on 25 May, with Scotland winning 3–2.
In September 1975, the team travelled to Osnabrück, West Germany, to play three matches against a BAOR Select side, winning two of the games.
The number of games against the different home nations has varied in regularity over the years. From 1958 until 1967, Northern Ireland were Scotland's only opponents, while in the 1970s there was an eight-year gap between the two sides meeting. Currently, games against England and Wales are in abeyance, and the team contest the biannual Quadrangular Tournament with friendly and testimonial matches arranged intermittently in the intervening seasons.
Current squad
The following players were selected for the Junior International Quadrangular Tournament which was held in Glasgow, from 11–14 October 2017.
Notable players
The following list, with one exception, notes players who all went on to gain full international honours for Scotland after winning junior international caps, the junior club with which they played at the time and the year of their junior cap.
Bob Foyers was a member of the team which played the first ever Scotland Junior international fixture in May 1889, and after joining St Bernard's the following year, became the first dual Junior/Senior international in 1893 when capped against Wales.
Harry Rennie earned his Junior cap as a defender and signed for Morton as such, but became a goalkeeper aged 23 in 1897 and won ten Senior caps in his new position.
The highest number of players from a Junior international match to go on to win Senior caps is four. In April 1896, Hugh Morgan, Willie Muir, Tommy Low and Bobby Walker, helped Scotland defeat England 4–0 at Aston Villa's Wellington Road ground. A further six players from the team also stepped up to Senior football.
The one exception noted on the list is Paul Wilson. The former Celtic forward was capped in 1980 after his Senior career while turning out for Blantyre Celtic, alongside another former Celt and dual international, Jimmy Johnstone.
Two players also received full caps for other nations after playing for Scotland Juniors: Archie Blue for Australia and Tommy O'Hara for the United States.
Tournament records
Quadrangular Tournament
1Round-robin tournament format used from 2000–01 onwards.
Notes
References
External links
Junior
1886 establishments in Scotland
Sports organizations established in 1886
Scottish Football Association
Organisations based in Glasgow |
421422 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20security%20hacking%20incidents | List of security hacking incidents | The list of security hacking incidents covers important or noteworthy events in the history of security hacking and cracking.
1900
1903
Magician and inventor Nevil Maskelyne disrupts John Ambrose Fleming's public demonstration of Guglielmo Marconi's purportedly secure wireless telegraphy technology, sending insulting Morse code messages through the auditorium's projector.
1930s
1932
Polish cryptologists Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki broke the Enigma machine code.
1939
Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman and Harold Keen worked together to develop the Bombe (on the basis of Rejewski's works on Bomba). The Enigma machine's use of a reliably small key space makes it vulnerable to brute force.
1940s
1943
René Carmille, comptroller general of the Vichy French Army, hacked the punched card system used by the Nazis to locate Jews.
1949
The theory that underlies computer viruses was first made public in 1949, when computer pioneer John von Neumann presented a paper titled "Theory and Organization of Complicated Automata". In the paper von Neumann speculated that computer programs could reproduce themselves.
1950s
1955
At MIT, "hack" first came to mean fussing with machines. The minutes of an April 1955 meeting of the Tech Model Railroad Club state that "Mr. Eccles requests that anyone working or hacking on the electrical system turn the power off to avoid fuse blowing."
1957
Joe "Joybubbles" Engressia, a blind seven-year-old boy with perfect pitch, discovered that whistling the fourth E above middle C (a frequency of 2600 Hz) would interfere with AT&T's automated telephone systems, thereby inadvertently opening the door for phreaking.
1960s
Various phreaking boxes are used to interact with automated telephone systems.
1963
The first ever reference to malicious hacking is 'telephone hackers' in MIT's student newspaper, The Tech of hackers tying up the lines with Harvard, configuring the PDP-1 to make free calls, war dialing and accumulating large phone bills.
1965
William D. Mathews from MIT found a vulnerability in a CTSS running on an IBM 7094. The standard text editor on the system was designed to be used by one user at a time, working in one directory, and so created a temporary file with a constant name for all instantiations of the editor. The flaw was discovered when two system programmers were editing at the same time and the temporary files for the message-of-the day and the password file became swapped, causing the contents of the system CTSS password file to display to any user logging into the system.
1967
The first known incidence of network penetration hacking took place when members of a computer club at a suburban Chicago area high school were provided access to IBM's APL network. In the Fall of 1967, IBM (through Science Research Associates) approached Evanston Township High School with the offer of four 2741 Selectric teletypewriter based terminals with dial-up modem connectivity to an experimental computer system which implemented an early version of the APL programming language. The APL network system was structured in Workspaces which were assigned to various clients using the system. Working independently, the students quickly learned the language and the system. They were free to explore the system, often using existing code available in public Workspaces as models for their own creations. Eventually, curiosity drove the students to explore the system's wider context. This first informal network penetration effort was later acknowledged as helping harden the security of one of the first publicly accessible networks:
1970s
1971
John T. Draper (later nicknamed Captain Crunch), his friend Joe Engressia (also known as Joybubbles), and blue box phone phreaking hit the news with an Esquire magazine feature story.
1979
Kevin Mitnick breaks into his first major computer system, the Ark, the computer system Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) used for developing their RSTS/E operating system software.
1980s
1980
The FBI investigates a breach of security at National CSS (NCSS). The New York Times, reporting on the incident in 1981, describes hackers as
The newspaper describes white hat activities as part of a "mischievous but perversely positive 'hacker' tradition". When a National CSS employee revealed the existence of his password cracker, which he had used on customer accounts, the company chastised him not for writing the software but for not disclosing it sooner. The letter of reprimand stated that "The Company realizes the benefit to NCSS and in fact encourages the efforts of employees to identify security weaknesses to the VP, the directory, and other sensitive software in files".
1981
Chaos Computer Club forms in Germany.
Ian Murphy aka Captain Zap, was the first cracker to be tried and convicted as a felon. Murphy broke into AT&T's computers in 1981 and changed the internal clocks that metered billing rates. People were getting late-night discount rates when they called at midday. Of course, the bargain-seekers who waited until midnight to call long distance were hit with high bills.
1983
The 414s break into 60 computer systems at institutions ranging from the Los Alamos National Laboratory to Manhattan's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The incident appeared as the cover story of Newsweek with the title "Beware: Hackers at play". As a result, the U.S. House of Representatives held hearings on computer security and passed several laws.
The group KILOBAUD is formed in February, kicking off a series of other hacker groups which form soon after.
The movie WarGames introduces the wider public to the phenomenon of hacking and creates a degree of mass paranoia of hackers and their supposed abilities to bring the world to a screeching halt by launching nuclear ICBMs.
The U.S. House of Representatives begins hearings on computer security hacking.
In his Turing Award lecture, Ken Thompson mentions "hacking" and describes a security exploit that he calls a "Trojan horse".
1984
Someone calling himself Lex Luthor founds the Legion of Doom. Named after a Saturday morning cartoon, the LOD had the reputation of attracting "the best of the best"—until one of the most talented members called Phiber Optik feuded with Legion of Doomer Erik Bloodaxe and got 'tossed out of the clubhouse'. Phiber's friends formed a rival group, the Masters of Deception.
The Comprehensive Crime Control Act gives the Secret Service jurisdiction over computer fraud.
Cult of the Dead Cow forms in Lubbock, Texas, and begins publishing its ezine.
The hacker magazine 2600 begins regular publication, right when TAP was putting out its final issue. The editor of 2600, "Emmanuel Goldstein" (whose real name is Eric Corley), takes his handle from the leader of the resistance in George Orwell's 1984. The publication provides tips for would-be hackers and phone phreaks, as well as commentary on the hacker issues of the day. Today, copies of 2600 are sold at most large retail bookstores.
The Chaos Communication Congress, the annual European hacker conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club, is held in Hamburg, Germany.
William Gibson's groundbreaking science fiction novel Neuromancer, about "Case", a futuristic computer hacker, is published. Considered the first major cyberpunk novel, it brought into hacker jargon such terms as "cyberspace", "the matrix", "simstim", and "ICE".
1985
KILOBAUD is re-organized into The P.H.I.R.M. and begins sysopping hundreds of BBSs throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
The online 'zine Phrack is established.
The Hacker's Handbook is published in the UK.
The FBI, Secret Service, Middlesex County NJ Prosecutor's Office and various local law enforcement agencies execute seven search warrants concurrently across New Jersey on July 12, 1985, seizing equipment from BBS operators and users alike for "complicity in computer theft", under a newly passed, and yet untested criminal statute. This is famously known as the Private Sector Bust, or the 2600 BBS Seizure, and implicated the Private Sector BBS sysop, Store Manager (also a BBS sysop), Beowulf, Red Barchetta, The Vampire, the NJ Hack Shack BBS sysop, and the Treasure Chest BBS sysop.
1986
After more and more break-ins to government and corporate computers, Congress passes the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to break into computer systems. The law, however, does not cover juveniles.
Robert Schifreen and Stephen Gold are convicted of accessing the Telecom Gold account belonging to the Duke of Edinburgh under the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 in the United Kingdom, the first conviction for illegally accessing a computer system. On appeal, the conviction is overturned as hacking is not within the legal definition of forgery.
Arrest of a hacker who calls himself The Mentor. He published a now-famous treatise shortly after his arrest that came to be known as the Hacker Manifesto in the e-zine Phrack. This still serves as the most famous piece of hacker literature and is frequently used to illustrate the mindset of hackers.
Astronomer Clifford Stoll plays a pivotal role in tracking down hacker Markus Hess, events later covered in Stoll's 1990 book The Cuckoo's Egg.
1987
The Christmas Tree EXEC "worm" causes major disruption to the VNET, BITNET and EARN networks.
1988
The Morris Worm. Graduate student Robert T. Morris, Jr. of Cornell University launches a worm on the government's ARPAnet (precursor to the Internet). The worm spreads to 6,000 networked computers, clogging government and university systems. Robert Morris is dismissed from Cornell, sentenced to three years' probation, and fined $10,000.
First National Bank of Chicago is the victim of $70 million computer theft.
The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is created by DARPA to address network security.
The Father Christmas (computer worm) spreads over DECnet networks.
1989
Jude Milhon (aka St Jude) and R. U. Sirius launch MONDO 2000, a major '90s tech-lifestyle magazine, in Berkeley, California.
The politically motivated WANK worm spreads over DECnet.
Dutch magazine Hack-Tic begins.
The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll is published.
The detection of AIDS (Trojan horse) is the first instance of a ransomware detection.
1990s
1990
Operation Sundevil introduced. After a prolonged sting investigation, Secret Service agents swoop down on organizers and prominent members of BBSs in 14 U.S. cities including the Legion of Doom, conducting early-morning raids and arrests. The arrests involve and are aimed at cracking down on credit-card theft and telephone and wire fraud. The result is a breakdown in the hacking community, with members informing on each other in exchange for immunity. The offices of Steve Jackson Games are also raided, and the role-playing sourcebook GURPS Cyberpunk is confiscated, possibly because the government fears it is a "handbook for computer crime". Legal battles arise that prompt the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, including the trial of Knight Lightning.
Australian federal police tracking Realm members Phoenix, Electron and Nom are the first in the world to use a remote data intercept to gain evidence for a computer crime prosecution.
The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is passed in the United Kingdom, criminalising any unauthorised access to computer systems.
1992
Release of the movie Sneakers, in which security experts are blackmailed into stealing a universal decoder for encryption systems.
One of the first ISPs, MindVox, opens to the public.
Bulgarian virus writer Dark Avenger wrote 1260, the first known use of polymorphic code, used to circumvent the type of pattern recognition used by antivirus software, and nowadays also intrusion detection systems.
Publication of a hacking instruction manual for penetrating TRW credit reporting agency by Infinite Possibilities Society (IPS) gets Dr. Ripco, the sysop of Ripco BBS mentioned in the IPS manual, arrested by the United States Secret Service.
1993
The first DEF CON hacking conference takes place in Las Vegas. The conference is meant to be a one-time party to say good-bye to BBSs (now replaced by the Web), but the gathering was so popular it became an annual event.
AOL gives its users access to Usenet, precipitating Eternal September.
1994
Summer: Russian crackers siphon $10 million from Citibank and transfer the money to bank accounts around the world. Vladimir Levin, the 30-year-old ringleader, used his work laptop after hours to transfer the funds to accounts in Finland and Israel. Levin stands trial in the United States and is sentenced to three years in prison. Authorities recover all but $400,000 of the stolen money.
Hackers adapt to emergence of the World Wide Web quickly, moving all their how-to information and hacking programs from the old BBSs to new hacker web sites.
AOHell is released, a freeware application that allows a burgeoning community of unskilled script kiddies to wreak havoc on America Online. For days, hundreds of thousands of AOL users find their mailboxes flooded with multi-megabyte email bombs and their chat rooms disrupted with spam messages.
December 27: After experiencing an IP spoofing attack by Kevin Mitnick, computer security expert Tsutomu Shimomura started to receive prank calls that popularized the phrase "My kung fu is stronger than yours".
1995
The movies The Net and Hackers are released.
The Canadian ISP dlcwest.com is hacked and website replaced with a graphic and the caption "You've been hacked MOFO"
The US Secret Service raid 12 and arrest 6 cellular phone hackers in Operation Cybersnare
February 22: The FBI raids the "Phone Masters".
1996
Hackers alter Web sites of the United States Department of Justice (August), the CIA (October), and the U.S. Air Force (December).
Canadian hacker group, Brotherhood, breaks into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Arizona hacker, John Sabo A.K.A FizzleB/Peanut, was arrested for hacking Canadian ISP dlcwest.com claiming the company was defrauding customers through over billing.
The US general accounting office reports that hackers attempted to break into Defense Department computer files some 250,000 times in 1995 alone with a success rate of about 65% and doubling annually.
Cryptovirology is born with the invention of the cryptoviral extortion protocol that would later form the basis of modern ransomware.
1997
A 16-year-old Croatian youth penetrates computers at a U.S. Air Force base in Guam.
June: Eligible Receiver 97 tests the American government's readiness against cyberattacks.
December: Information Security publishes first issue.
First high-profile attacks on Microsoft's Windows NT operating system
1998
January: Yahoo! notifies Internet users that anyone visiting its site in the past month might have downloaded a logic bomb and worm planted by hackers claiming a "logic bomb" will go off if computer hacker Kevin Mitnick is not released from prison.
February: The Internet Software Consortium proposes the use of DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) to secure DNS servers.
May 19: The seven members of the hacker think tank known as L0pht testify in front of the US congressional Government Affairs committee on "Weak Computer Security in Government".
June: Information Security publishes its first annual Industry Survey, finding that nearly three-quarters of organizations suffered a security incident in the previous year.
September: Electronic Disturbance Theater, an online political performance-art group, attacks the websites of The Pentagon, Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, calling it conceptual art and claiming it to be a protest against the suppression of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in southern Mexico. EDT uses the FloodNet software to bombard its opponents with access requests.
October: "U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno announces National Infrastructure Protection Center."
1999
Software security goes mainstream In the wake of Microsoft's Windows 98 release, 1999 becomes a banner year for security (and hacking). Hundreds of advisories and patches are released in response to newfound (and widely publicized) bugs in Windows and other commercial software products. A host of security software vendors release anti-hacking products for use on home computers.
U.S. President Bill Clinton announces a $1.46 billion initiative to improve government computer security. The plan would establish a network of intrusion detection monitors for certain federal agencies and encourage the private sector to do the same.
January 7: The "Legion of the Underground" (LoU) declares "war" against the governments of Iraq and the People's Republic of China. An international coalition of hackers (including Cult of the Dead Cow, 2600s staff, Phracks staff, L0pht, and the Chaos Computer Club) issued a joint statement (CRD 990107 - Hackers on planet earth against infowar) condemning the LoU's declaration of war. The LoU responded by withdrawing its declaration.
March: The Melissa worm is released and quickly becomes the most costly malware outbreak to date.
July: Cult of the Dead Cow releases Back Orifice 2000 at DEF CON.
August: Kevin Mitnick, is sentenced to 5 years, of which over 4 years had already been spent pre-trial including 8 months' solitary confinement.
September: Level Seven Crew hacks the U.S. Embassy in China's website and places racist, anti-government slogans on embassy site in regards to 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.
September 16: The United States Department of Justice sentences the "Phone Masters".
October: American Express introduces the "Blue" smart card, the industry's first chip-based credit card in the US.
November 17: A hacker interviewed by Hilly Rose during the radio show Coast to Coast AM (then hosted by Art Bell) exposes a plot by al-Qaeda to derail Amtrak trains. This results in all trains being forcibly stopped over Y2K as a safety measure.
2000s
2000
May: The ILOVEYOU worm, also known as VBS/Loveletter and Love Bug worm, is a computer worm written in VBScript. It infected millions of computers worldwide within a few hours of its release. It is considered to be one of the most damaging worms ever. It originated in the Philippines; made by an AMA Computer College student Onel de Guzman for his thesis.
September: Computer hacker Jonathan James became the first juvenile to serve jail time for hacking.
2001
Microsoft becomes the prominent victim of a new type of hack that attacks the domain name server. In these denial-of-service attacks, the DNS paths that take users to Microsoft's websites are corrupted.
February: A Dutch cracker releases the Anna Kournikova virus, initiating a wave of viruses that tempts users to open the infected attachment by promising a sexy picture of the Russian tennis star.
April: FBI agents trick two Russian crackers into coming to the U.S. and revealing how they were hacking U.S. banks.
July: Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov is arrested at the annual DEF CON hacker convention. He was the first person criminally charged with violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
August: Code Red worm, infects tens of thousands of machines.
The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) is established in response to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
2002
January: Bill Gates decrees that Microsoft will secure its products and services, and kicks off a massive internal training and quality control campaign.
March: Gary McKinnon is arrested following unauthorized access to US military and NASA computers.
May: Klez.H, a variant of the worm discovered in November 2001, becomes the biggest malware outbreak in terms of machines infected, but causes little monetary damage.
June: The Bush administration files a bill to create the Department of Homeland Security, which, among other things, will be responsible for protecting the nation's critical IT infrastructure.
August: Researcher Chris Paget publishes a paper describing "shatter attacks", detailing how Windows' unauthenticated messaging system can be used to take over a machine. The paper raises questions about how securable Windows could ever be. It is however largely derided as irrelevant as the vulnerabilities it described are caused by vulnerable applications (placing windows on the desktop with inappropriate privileges) rather than an inherent flaw within the Operating System.
October: The International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium—(ISC)²—confers its 10,000th CISSP certification.
2003
The hacktivist group Anonymous was formed.
March: Cult of the Dead Cow and Hacktivismo are given permission by the United States Department of Commerce to export software utilizing strong encryption.
2004
March: New Zealand's Government (National Party) website defaced by hacktivist group BlackMask
July: North Korea claims to have trained 500 hackers who successfully crack South Korean, Japanese, and their allies' computer systems.
October: National Cyber Security Awareness Month was launched by the National Cyber Security Alliance and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
2005
April 2: Rafael Núñez (aka RaFa), a notorious member of the hacking group World of Hell, is arrested following his arrival at Miami International Airport for breaking into the Defense Information Systems Agency computer system in June 2001.
September 13: Cameron Lacroix is sentenced to 11 months for gaining access to T-Mobile's network and exploiting Paris Hilton's Sidekick.
November 3: Jeanson James Ancheta, whom prosecutors say was a member of the "Botmaster Underground", a group of script kiddies mostly noted for their excessive use of bot attacks and propagating vast amounts of spam, was taken into custody after being lured to FBI offices in Los Angeles.
2006
January: One of the few worms to take after the old form of malware, destruction of data rather than the accumulation of zombie networks to launch attacks from, is discovered. It had various names, including Kama Sutra (used by most media reports), Black Worm, Mywife, Blackmal, Nyxem version D, Kapser, KillAV, Grew and CME-24. The worm would spread through e-mail client address books, and would search for documents and fill them with garbage, instead of deleting them to confuse the user. It would also hit a web page counter when it took control, allowing the programmer who created it as well as the world to track the progress of the worm. It would replace documents with random garbage on the third of every month. It was hyped by the media but actually affected relatively few computers, and was not a real threat for most users.
May: Jeanson James Ancheta receives a 57-month prison sentence, and is ordered to pay damages amounting to $15,000 to the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake and the Defense Information Systems Agency, for damage done due to DDoS attacks and hacking. Ancheta also had to forfeit his gains to the government, which include $60,000 in cash, a BMW, and computer equipment.
May: The largest defacement in Web History as of that time is performed by the Turkish hacker iSKORPiTX who successfully hacked 21,549 websites in one shot.
July: Robert Moore and Edwin Pena were the first people to be charged by U.S. authorities for VoIP hacking. Robert Moore served 2 years in federal prison and was given $152,000 restitution. Once Edwin Pena was caught after fleeing the country, evading authorities for almost 2 years, he was sentenced to 10 years and given $1 million restitution.
September: Viodentia releases FairUse4WM tool which would remove DRM information off Windows Media Audio (WMA) files downloaded from music services such as Yahoo! Unlimited, Napster, Rhapsody Music and Urge.
2007
May 17: Estonia recovers from massive denial-of-service attack
June 13: FBI Operation Bot Roast finds over 1 million botnet victims
June 21: A spear phishing incident at the Office of the Secretary of Defense steals sensitive U.S. defense information, leading to significant changes in identity and message-source verification at OSD.
August 11: United Nations website hacked by Indian Hacker Pankaj Kumar Singh.
November 14: Panda Burning Incense which is known by several other names, including Fujacks and Radoppan.T lead to the arrest of eight people in China. Panda Burning Incense was a parasitic virus that infected executable files on a PC. When infected, the icon of the executable file changes to an image of a panda holding three sticks of incense. The arrests were the first for virus writing in China.
2008
January 17: Project Chanology; Anonymous attacks Scientology website servers around the world. Private documents are stolen from Scientology computers and distributed over the Internet.
March 7: Around 20 Chinese hackers claim to have gained access to the world's most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon. They operated from an apartment on a Chinese Island.
March 14: Trend Micro website successfully hacked by Turkish hacker Janizary (aka Utku).
2009
April 4: Conficker worm infiltrated millions of PCs worldwide including many government-level top-security computer networks.
2010s
2010
January 12: Operation Aurora Google publicly reveals that it has been on the receiving end of a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google"
June: Stuxnet The Stuxnet worm is found by VirusBlokAda. Stuxnet was unusual in that while it spread via Windows computers, its payload targeted just one specific model and type of SCADA systems. It slowly became clear that it was a cyber attack on Iran's nuclear facilities—with most experts believing that Israel was behind it—perhaps with US help.
December 3: The first Malware Conference, MALCON took place in India. Founded by Rajshekhar Murthy, malware coders are invited to showcase their skills at this annual event supported by the Government of India. An advanced malware for Symbian OS is released by hacker A0drul3z.
2011
The hacker group Lulz Security is formed.
April 9: Bank of America website got hacked by a Turkish hacker named JeOPaRDY. An estimated 85,000 credit card numbers and accounts were reported to have been stolen due to the hack. Bank officials say no personal customer bank information is available on that web-page. Investigations are being conducted by the FBI to trace down the incriminated hacker.
April 17: An "external intrusion" sends the PlayStation Network offline, and compromises personally identifying information (possibly including credit card details) of its 77 million accounts, in what is claimed to be one of the five largest data breaches ever.
Computer hacker sl1nk releases information of his penetration in the servers of the Department of Defense (DoD), Pentagon, NASA, NSA, US Military, Department of the Navy, Space and Naval Warfare System Command and other UK/US government websites.
September: Bangladeshi hacker TiGER-M@TE made a world record in defacement history by hacking 700,000 websites in a single shot.
October 16: The YouTube channel of Sesame Street was hacked, streaming pornographic content for about 22 minutes.
November 1: The main phone and Internet networks of the Palestinian territories sustained a hacker attack from multiple locations worldwide.
November 7: The forums for Valve's Steam service were hacked. Redirects for a hacking website, Fkn0wned, appeared on the Steam users' forums, offering "hacking tutorials and tools, porn, free giveaways and much more."
December 14: Five members of the Norwegian hacker group, Noria, were arrested, allegedly suspected for hacking into the email account of the militant extremist Anders Behring Breivik (who perpetrated the 2011 attacks in the country).
2012
A hacker published over 400,000 credit cards online, and threatened Israel to release 1 million credit cards in the future. In response to that incident, an Israeli hacker published over 200 Albanian' credit cards online.
Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, the co-founder of Pirate Bay, was convicted in Denmark of hacking a mainframe computer, what was then Denmark's biggest hacking case.
January 7: "Team Appunity", a group of Norwegian hackers, were arrested for breaking into Norway's largest prostitution website then publishing the user database online.
February 3: Marriott was hacked by a New Age ideologist, Attila Nemeth who was resisting against the New World Order where he said that corporations are allegedly controlling the world. As a response Marriott reported him to the United States Secret Service.
February 8: Foxconn is hacked by a hacker group, "Swagg Security", releasing a massive amount of data including email and server logins, and even more alarming—bank account credentials of large companies like Apple and Microsoft. Swagg Security stages the attack just as a Foxconn protest ignites against terrible working conditions in southern China.
May 4: The websites of several Turkish representative offices of international IT-companies are defaced within the same day by F0RTYS3V3N (Turkish Hacker), including the websites of Google, Yandex, Microsoft, Gmail, MSN, Hotmail, PayPal.
May 24: WHMCS is hacked by UGNazi, they claim that the reason for this is because of the illegal sites that are using their software.
May 31: MyBB is hacked by newly founded hacker group, UGNazi, the website was defaced for about a day, they claim their reasoning for this was because they were upset that the forum board Hackforums.net uses their software.
June 5: The social networking website LinkedIn has been hacked and the passwords for nearly 6.5 million user accounts are stolen by cybercriminals. As a result, a United States grand jury indicted Nikulin and three unnamed co-conspirators on charges of aggravated identity theft and computer intrusion.
August 15: Saudi Aramco is crippled by a cyber warfare attack for months by malware called Shamoon. Considered the biggest hack in history in terms of cost and destructiveness. Carried out by an Iranian attacker group called Cutting Sword of Justice. Iranian hackers retaliated against Stuxnet by releasing Shamoon. The malware destroyed over 35,000 Saudi Aramco computers, affecting business operations for months.
December 17: Computer hacker sl1nk announced that he has hacked a total of 9 countries' SCADA systems. The proof includes 6 countries: France, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden and the United States.
2013
The social networking website Tumblr is attacked by hackers. Consequently, 65,469,298 unique emails and passwords were leaked from Tumblr. The data breach's legitimacy is confirmed by computer security researcher Troy Hunt.
August: Yahoo! data breaches occurred. More than 3 billion users data are being leaked.
2014
February 7: The bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy after $460million was apparently stolen by hackers due to "weaknesses in [their] system" and another $27.4million went missing from its bank accounts.
October: The White House computer system was hacked. It was said that the FBI, the Secret Service, and other U.S. intelligence agencies categorized the attacks "among the most sophisticated attacks ever launched against U.S. government systems."
November 24: In response to the release of the film The Interview, the servers of Sony Pictures are hacked by a hacker group calling itself "Guardian of Peace".
November 28: The website of the Philippine telecommunications company Globe Telecom was hacked in response to the poor internet service they are distributing.
2015
June: the records of 21.5 million people, including social security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, fingerprints, and security clearance-related information, are stolen from the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Most of the victims are employees of the United States government and unsuccessful applicants to it. The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post report that government sources believe the hacker is the government of China.
July: The servers of extramarital affairs website Ashley Madison were breached.
2016
February: The 2016 Bangladesh Bank heist attempted to steal US$951 million from a Bangladesh Bank, and succeeded in getting $101 million—although some of this was later recovered.
July 22: WikiLeaks published the documents from the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak.
July 29: a group suspected coming from China launched hacker attacks on the website of Vietnam Airlines.
August 13: The Shadow Brokers (TSB) started publishing several leaks containing hacking tools from the National Security Agency (NSA), including several zero-day exploits. Ongoing leaks until April 2017 (The Shadow Brokers)
September: Hacker Ardit Ferizi is sentenced to 20 years in prison after being arrested for hacking U.S. servers and passing the leaked information to members of ISIL terrorist group back in 2015.
October: The 2016 Dyn cyberattack is being conducted with a botnet consisting of IOTs infected with Mirai by the hacktivist groups SpainSquad, Anonymous, and New World Hackers, reportedly in retaliation for Ecuador's rescinding Internet access to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at their embassy in London, where he has been granted asylum.
Late 2016: Hackers steal international personal user data from the company Uber, including phone numbers, email addresses, and names, of 57 million people and 600,000 driver's license numbers of drivers for the company. Uber's GitHub account was accessed through Amazon's cloud-based service. Uber paid the hackers $100,000 for assurances the data was destroyed.
December 2016: Yahoo! data breaches reported and affected more than 1 billion users. The data leakage includes user names, email addresses, telephone numbers, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers, dates of birth, and hashed passwords
2017
April: A hacker group calling itself "The Dark Overlord" posted unreleased episodes of Orange Is the New Black TV series online after failing to extort the online entertainment company Netflix.
May: WannaCry ransomware attack started on Friday, May 12, 2017, and has been described as unprecedented in scale, infecting more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries. A hacked unreleased Disney film is held for ransom, to be paid in Bitcoin.
May: 25,000 digital photos and ID scans relating to patients of the Grozio Chirurgija cosmetic surgery clinic in Lithuania were obtained and published without consent by an unknown group demanding ransoms. Thousands of clients from more than 60 countries were affected. The breach brought attention to weaknesses in Lithuania's information security.
June: 2017 Petya cyberattack.
June: TRITON (TRISIS), a malware framework designed to reprogram Triconex safety instrumented systems (SIS) of industrial control systems (ICS), discovered in Saudi Arabian Petrochemical plant.
August: Hackers demand $7.5 million in Bitcoin to stop pre-releasing HBO shows and scripts, including Ballers, Room 104 and Game of Thrones.
May–July 2017: The Equifax breach.
September 2017: Deloitte breach.
December: Mecklenburg County, North Carolina computer systems were hacked. They did not pay the ransom.
2018
March: Computer systems in the city of Atlanta, in the U.S. state of Georgia, are seized by hackers with ransomware. They did not pay the ransom, and two Iranians were indicted by the FBI on cyber crime charges for the breach.
The town of Wasaga Beach in Ontario, Canada computer systems are seized by hackers with ransomware.
September: Facebook was hacked, exposing to hackers the personal information of an estimated 30 million Facebook users (initially estimated at 50 million) when the hackers "stole" the "access tokens" of 400,000 Facebook users. The information accessible to the hackers included users' email addresses, phone numbers, their lists of friends, Groups they are members of, users' search information, posts on their timelines, and names of recent Messenger conversations.
October: West Haven, Connecticut USA computer systems are seized by hackers with ransomware, they paid $2,000 in ransom.
November:
The first U.S. indictment of individual people for ransomware attacks occurs. The U.S. Justice Department indicted two men Faramarz Shahi Savandi and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri who allegedly used the SamSam ransomware for extortion, netting them more than $6 million in ransom payments. The companies infected with the ransomware included Allscripts, Medstar Health, and Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. Altogether, the attacks caused victims to lose more than $30 million, in addition to the ransom payments.
Marriott disclosed that its Starwood Hotel brand had been subject to a security breach.
2019
March: Jackson County computer systems in the U.S. state of Georgia are seized by hackers with ransomware, they paid $400,000 in ransom. The city of Albany in the U.S. state of New York experiences a ransomware cyber attack.
April: Computer systems in the city of Augusta, in the U.S. state of Maine, are seized by hackers using ransomware. The City of Greenville (North Carolina)'s computer systems are seized by hackers using ransomware known as RobbinHood. Imperial County, in the U.S. state of California, computer systems are seized by hackers using Ryuk ransomware.
May: computer systems belonging to the City of Baltimore are seized by hackers using ransomware known as RobbinHood that encrypts files with a "file-locking" virus, as well as the tool EternalBlue.
June: The city of Riviera Beach, Florida paid roughly $600,000 ransom in Bitcoin to hackers who seized their computers using ransomware. Hackers stole 18 hours of unreleased music from the band Radiohead demanding $150,000 ransom. Radiohead released the music to the public anyway and did not pay the ransom.
November: The Anonymous hacktivist collective announced that they have hacked into four Chinese computer databases and donated those to data breach indexing/notification service vigilante.pw. The hack was conducted in order to support the 2019 Hong Kong protests, amidst the Hong Kong police's siege of the city's Polytechnic University. They also brought up a possible peace plan first proposed by a professor at Inha University in hopes of having the Korean reunification and the five key demands of the Hong Kong protest being fulfilled at once.
2020s
2020
February: Anonymous hacked the United Nations website and created a page for Taiwan, a country which had not had a seat at the UN since 1971. The hacked page featured the Flag of Taiwan, the KMT emblem, a Taiwan Independence flag, the Anonymous logo, embedded YouTube videos such as the Taiwanese national anthem and the closing score for the 2019 film Avengers: Endgame titled "It's Been a Long, Long Time", and a caption. The hacked server belonged to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
May: Anonymous declared a large hack on May 28, three days after the murder of George Floyd. An individual claiming to represent Anonymous stated that "We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us." in a now-deleted video. Anonymous addressed police brutality and said they "will be exposing [their] many crimes to the world". It was suspected that Anonymous were the cause for the downtime and public suspension of the Minneapolis Police Department website and its parent site, the website of the City of Minneapolis.
May: Indian national Shubham Upadhyay posed as Superintendent of Police and, using social engineering, used a free caller identification app to call up the in-charge of the Kotwali police station, K. K. Gupta, in order to threaten him to get his phone repaired amidst the COVID-19 lockdown. The attempt was foiled.
June: Anonymous claimed responsibility for stealing and leaking a trove of documents collectively nicknamed 'BlueLeaks'. The 269-gigabyte collection was published by a leak-focused activist group known as Distributed Denial of Secrets. Furthermore, the collective took down Atlanta Police Department's website via DDoS, and defaced websites such as a Filipino governmental webpage and that of Brookhaven National Labs. They expressed support for Julian Assange and press freedom, while briefly "taking a swing" against Facebook, Reddit and Wikipedia for having 'engaged in shady practices behind our prying eyes'. In the case of Reddit, they posted a link to a court document describing the possible involvement of a moderator of a large traffic subreddit (/r/news) in an online harassment-related case.
June: The Buffalo, NY police department's website was supposedly hacked by Anonymous. While the website was up and running after a few minutes, Anonymous tweeted again on Twitter urging that it be taken down. A few minutes later, the Buffalo NY website was brought down again. They also hacked Chicago police radios to play N.W.A's "Fuck tha Police".
June: Over 1,000 accounts on multiplayer online game Roblox were hacked to display that they supported U.S. President Donald Trump.
July: The 2020 Twitter bitcoin scam occurred.
July: User credentials of writing website Wattpad were stolen and leaked on a hacker forum. The database contained over 200 million records.
August: A large number of subreddits were hacked to post materials endorsing Donald Trump. The affected subreddits included r/BlackPeopleTwitter, r/3amJokes, r/NFL, r/PhotoshopBattles. An entity with the name of "calvin goh and Melvern" had purportedly claimed responsibility for the massive defacement, and also made violent threats against a Chinese embassy.
August: The US Air Force's Hack-A-Sat event was hosted at DEF CON's virtual conference where groups such as Poland Can Into Space, FluxRepeatRocket, AddVulcan, Samurai, Solar Wine, PFS, 15 Fitty Tree, and 1064CBread competed in order to control a satellite in space. The Poland Can Into Space team stood out for having successfully manipulated a satellite to take a picture of the Moon.
August: The website of Belarusian company "BrestTorgTeknika" was defaced by a hacker nicknaming herself "Queen Elsa", in order to support the 2020–21 Belarusian protests. In it, the page hacker exclaimed "Get Iced Iced already" and "Free Belarus, revolution of our times" with the latter alluding to the famous slogan used by 2019 Hong Kong protests. The results of the hack were then announced on Reddit's /r/Belarus subreddit by a poster under the username "Socookre".
August: Multiple DDoS attacks forced New Zealand's stock market to temporarily shut down.
September: The first suspected death from a cyberattack was reported after cybercriminals hit a hospital in Düsseldorf, Germany with ransomware.
October: A wave of botnet-coordinated ransomware attacks against hospital infrastructure occurred in the United States, identified as . State security officials and American corporate security officers were concerned that these attacks might be a prelude to hacking of election infrastructure during the elections of the subsequent month, like similar incidents during the 2016 United States elections and other attacks; there was, however, no evidence that they performed attacks on election infrastructure in 2020.
December: A supply chain attack targeting upstream dependencies from Texas IT service provider "SolarWinds" results in serious, wide-ranging security breaches at the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments. White House officials did not immediately publicly identify a culprit; Reuters, citing sources "familiar with the investigation", pointed toward the Russian government. An official statement shared by Senate Finance Committee ranking member, Ron Wyden said: "Hackers broke into systems in the Departmental Offices division of Treasury, home to the department’s highest-ranking officials."
December: A bomb threat posted from a Twitter account that was seemingly hacked by persons with the aliases of "Omnipotent" and "choonkeat", against the Aeroflot Flight 102, a passenger flight with the plane tail number of VQ-BIL coming from Moscow to New York City. Due to that, a runway of New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport was temporarily closed and resulted in the delay of Aeroflot Flight 103, a return flight back to Moscow.
December: The Anonymous group initiated 'Christmas gift' defacements against multiple Russian portals including a municipal website in Tomsk and that of a regional football club. Inside the defacements, they made multiple references such as Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny, freedom protests in Thailand and Belarus, and opposition to the Chinese Communist Party. They also held a mock award based on an event on the game platform Roblox that was called "RB Battles" where YouTubers Tanqr and KreekCraft, the winner and the runner up of the actual game event, were compared to both Taiwan and New Zealand respectively due to the latter's reportedly stellar performance in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
2021
January: Microsoft Exchange Server data breach
February: Anonymous announced cyber-attacks of at least five Malaysian websites. As a result, eleven individuals were nabbed as suspects.
February: Hackers including those with names of "张卫能 utoyo" and "full_discl0sure" hijacked an events website Aucklife in order to craft a phony bomb threat against the Chinese consulate in Auckland, New Zealand, and also a similar facility in Sydney, Australia. Their motive was a punitive response against China due to COVID-19. As a result, a physical search was conducted at the consulate by New Zealand's Police Specialist Search Group while Aucklife owner Hailey Newton had since regained her access to the website. Wellington-based cybersecurity consultant Adam Boileau remarked that the hack isn't 'highly technical'.
February: The group "Myanmar Hackers" attacked several websites belonging to Myanmar government agencies such as the Central Bank of Myanmar and the military-run Tatmadaw True News Information Team. The group also targeted the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration, Trade Department, Customs Department, Ministry of Commerce, Myawady TV and state-owned broadcaster Myanmar Radio and Television and some private media outlets. A computer technician in Yangon found that the hacks were denial-of-service attacks, while the group's motive is to protest the 2021 Myanmar coup.
March: Cyber insurer CNA Financial, one of the largest insurance companies based in the US, was attacked with ransomware, causing the company to lose control over its network. The company paid $40 million to regain network control. CNA had, at first, ignored the hackers, attempting to solve the problem independently; remaining locked out, however, CNA paid the ransom within a week. CNA's investigation reported that cyberattack group Phoenix had used Phoenix Locker malware, a variant of the Hades ransomware used by Russian criminal hacking group Evil Corp. Phoenix Locker malware encrypted 15,000 devices on the network, as well as the computers of employees working remotely while logged into the company's VPN during the attack.
April: Over 500 million Facebook users' personal info—including info on 32 million in the United States—was discovered posted on a hackers' website, though Facebook claimed that the information was from a 2019 hack, and that the company had already taken mitigation measures; however, the company declined to say whether it had notified the affected users of the breach.
April: The Ivanti Pulse Connect Secure data breach of unauthorized access to the networks of high-value targets since at least June 2020 via across the U.S. and some E.U. nations due to their use of vulnerable, proprietary software was reported.
May: Operation of the U.S. Colonial Pipeline is interrupted by a ransomware cyber operation.
May: On 21 May 2021 Air India was subjected to a cyberattack wherein the personal details of about 4.5 million customers around the world were compromised including passport, credit card details, birth dates, name and ticket information.
July: On 22 July 2021 Saudi Aramco data were leaked by a third-party contractor and demanded $50 million ransom from Saudi Aramco. Saudi Aramco confirmed the incident after a hacker claimed on dark web that he had stolen 1 terabyte of data about location of oil refineries and employees data in a post that was posted on June 23.
August: T-Mobile reported that data files with information from about 40 million former or prospective T-Mobile customers, including first and last names, date of birth, SSN, and driver's license/ID information, were compromised.
September and October: 2021 Epik data breach. Anonymous obtained and released over 400gigabytes of data from the domain registrar and web hosting company Epik. The data was shared in three releases between September 13 and October 4. The first release included domain purchase and transfer details, account credentials and logins, payment history, employee emails, and unidentified private keys. The hackers claimed they had obtained "a decade's worth of data", including all customer data and records for all domains ever hosted or registered through the company, and which included poorly encrypted passwords and other sensitive data stored in plaintext. The second release consisted of bootable disk images and API keys for third-party services used by Epik; the third contained additional disk images and an archive of data belonging to the Republican Party of Texas, who are an Epik customer.
October: On October 6, 2021, an anonymous 4chan reportedly hacked and leaked the source code of Twitch, as well as information on how much the streaming service paid almost 2.4 million streamers since August 2019. Source code from almost 6,000 GitHub repositories was leaked, and the 4chan user said it was "part one" of a much larger release.
November and December: On November 24th, Chen Zhaojun of Alibaba's Cloud Security Team reported a zero-day vulnerability (later dubbed Log4Shell) involving the use of arbitrary code execution in the ubiquitous Java logging framework software Log4j. The report was privately disclosed to project developers of Log4j, a team at The Apache Software Foundation, on November 24. On December 8, Zhaojun contacted the developers again detailing how the vulnerability was being discussed in public security chat rooms, was already known by some security researchers, and pleaded that the team expedite the solution to the vulnerability in the official release version of Log4j. Early exploitations were noticed on Minecraft servers on December 9; however, forensic analysis indicates that Log4Shell may have been exploited as early as December 1 or 2nd. Due to the ubiquity of devices with the Log4j software (hundreds of millions) and the simplicity in executing the vulnerability, it is considered to be arguably one of the largest and most critical vulnerabilities ever. Yet, big names in security hacking helped in regaining control over server, like Graham Ivan Clark, and Elhamy A. Elsebaey. A portion of the vulnerability was fixed in a patch distributed on December 6, three days before the vulnerability was publicly disclosed on December 9.
2022
February: The German Chaos Computer Club has reported more than fifty data leaks. Government institutions and companies from various business sectors were affected. In total, the researchers had access to over 6.4 million personal data records as well as terabytes of log data and source code.
March: The website of a local newspaper in Sumy, Ukraine was hacked by a person identifying themselves as "zehang陈". They claimed that they and other individuals "P_srim_asap", "Mrthanthomthebomber", "mister-handsomekai" and "RiansJohnson" had placed bombs at Chinese and Russian diplomatic facilities in Malaysia with the former containing a photo of Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, Hong Kong's International Finance Centre and MTR Airport Station, and the headquarters office of American game company ROBLOX. Besides that, they claimed responsibility for the delivery of an envelope containing white powders against the Russian embassy in Canberra, Australia. As a result the area surrounding the embassy was briefly cordoned off.
March: As a response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Anonymous performed many attacks against computer systems in Russia. Most notably, Anonymous committed a cyberattack against Roskomnadzor.
March: On 23 March 2022, hackers compromised the Ronin Network, stealing approximately US$620 million in Ether and USDC. A total of 173,600 Ether and 25.5 million USDC tokens were stolen in two transactions. It took the company six days to notice the hack. The hack currently sits as the largest-ever breach in the cryptocurrency sector by dollar value. It further damaged the value of SLP. On 8 April 2022, Sky Mavis said it expected it would be able to recover some of the funds, but it would take several years. The company raised additional venture capital and reimbursed all users affected in the hack. On 14 April 2022, the FBI issued a statement that the Lazarus Group and APT38, which are North Korean state-sponsored hacker groups, were responsible for the theft. Accordingly, the US Treasury has sanctioned the cryptocurrency address. Some of the cryptocurrency has been laundered through a cryptocurrency tumbler known as "Tornado Cash".
April: Anonymous hacked Russian companies Aerogas, Forest, and Petrovsky Fort. From there they leaked around 437,500 emails which they donated to non-profit whistleblower organization Distributed Denial of Secrets. Furthermore, they leaked 446 GB of data from Russian Ministry of Culture.
April: On April 19, Gijón City Council (Spain) was attacked by the GERVASIA computer virus and suffered data hijacking.
May: Network Battalion 65 (NB65), a hacktivist group affiliated with Anonymous, has reportedly hacked Russian payment processor Qiwi. A total of 10.5 terabytes of data including transaction records and customers' credit cards had been exfiltrated. They further infected Qiwi with ransomwares and threatened to release more customer records.
May: During the Victory Day in Russia, anti-war messages were inserted into Russian TV schedules including that of Russia-1, Channel 1, and NTV-Plus. One of the messages were "On your hands is the blood of thousands of Ukrainians and their hundreds of murdered children. TV and the authorities are lying. No to war."
June: A hacker on the Breach Forums claimed to have leaked more than 1 billion people's personal records from the Shanghai National Police Database.
August: During the visit of Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the website of Taiwan's Office of the President website was affected by a distributed denial of service attack. Anonymous then hacked into a China Heilongjiang province's Society Scientific Community Federation website and a Chinese gasoline generator factory’s website.
See also
List of cyberattacks
List of data breaches
References
Further reading
Computer Security Hacker History
Computer security
Hacking (computer security) |
421462 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak%20Cliff | Oak Cliff | Oak Cliff is an area of Dallas, Texas, United States that was formerly a separate town in Dallas County; Dallas annexed Oak Cliff on April 04, 1903 (Dallas Ordinance Vol. 12, Pg. 1). It has since retained a distinct neighborhood identity as one of Dallas' older established neighborhoods.
Oak Cliff has turn-of-the-20th century and mid-20th century housing, many parks, and is near the central business district of downtown Dallas.
The boundaries of Oak Cliff are roughly Interstate 30 on the north, Loop 12 on the west, Interstate 45 on the east, the Trinity River on the northeast and Interstate 20 on the south. There are no officially recognized or universally accepted boundaries for what constitutes Oak Cliff.
History
Oak Cliff originated on December 15, 1886, when John S. Armstrong and Thomas L. Marsalis bought a farm of on the west side of the Trinity River for $8,000. The farm was subdivided into blocks, and the plat of the new town made. Armstrong and Marsalis began to develop the land into an elite residential area, which proved to be a success by the end of 1887, with sales surpassing $60,000. However, after a disagreement between the partners, Marsalis secured complete control over Oak Cliff's development. Armstrong would go on to create his own elite residential development on the north side of Dallas, known as Highland Park.
According to the first plat filed, the original township of Oak Cliff extended as far north as First Street, later named Colorado Boulevard just north of Lake Cliff, then known as Spring Lake, and as far south as a pavilion below Thirteenth Street. It was bounded on the east by Miller Street, later named Cliff Street, and on the west by Beckley Avenue. Jefferson Boulevard was the route of a steam railroad, and the principal north and south thoroughfare was Marsalis Avenue, then called Grand Street.
On November 1, 1887, $23,000 worth of lots were sold in the newly opened Marsalis Addition (Oak Cliff) before noon, and on the following day, ninety-one lots were sold for $38,113. Figures published later in November gave the new suburb a population of 500. Marsalis developed the Oak Cliff Elevated Railway to provide the first transportation link to his new development, using a small shuttle train pulled by a "dummy" engine. The transportation system was modeled on one in the city of New York and was promoted as "the first elevated railway in the South". The railroad ran special trains to Oak Cliff Park the home ground of the Dallas Hams. In reality, the railroad operated at ground level almost its entire course down Jefferson Boulevard and towards Lake Cliff; it only became slightly elevated as it crossed the Trinity River. This steam railway was continued for many years for commuters and pleasure seekers. Marsalis began two other development projects with the intent to promote Oak Cliff as a vacation resort. One was Oak Cliff Park, later called Marsalis Park and Zoo, a park that included a two-mile (3 km)-long lake and a 2,000-seat pavilion in which dances and operas were held. Another was the Park Hotel, modeled after the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, which included several mineral baths fed by artesian wells.
Oak Cliff incorporated in 1890 with a population of 2,470, and secured a post office which operated until 1896. The community had four grocery stores, two meat markets, a hardware store, and a feed store. Businesses included the Texas Paper Mills Company (later Fleming and Sons), the Oak Cliff Planing Mill, the Oak Cliff Artesian Well Company, Patton's Medicinal Laboratories, and the Oak Cliff Ice and Refrigeration Company. A number of new elite residential areas developed by the Dallas Land and Loan Company had pushed the community's boundaries westward to Willomet Street. Oak Cliff's first mayor was Hugh Ewing. In 1891 the community's first newspaper, the Oak Cliff Sunday Weekly, was published by F. N. Oliver.
Over the next three years Oak Cliff's development continued, but, during the depression of 1893, the demand for vacation resorts decreased, and the community's growth stagnated, forcing Marsalis into bankruptcy. Consequently, the Park Hotel was converted into the Oak Cliff College for Young Ladies. Another educational institution, the Patton Seminary, was established two years later by Dr. Edward G. Patton. By 1900 Oak Cliff was already no longer an elite residential and vacation community. Many of the lots once owned by the Dallas Land and Loan Company were subdivided by the Dallas and Oak Cliff Real Estate Company and sold to the middle and working classes, a trend which lasted well into the early 1900s. The census of 1900 reported Oak Cliff's population as 3,640.
In 1902, an interurban electric streetcar line controlled by the Northern Texas Traction Company, was constructed passing through Oak Cliff, and connected Dallas to Fort Worth. This line discontinued service in the late 1930s. Smaller residential streetcar service ran throughout Oak Cliff's neighborhoods, spanning over . Known as a streetcar suburb, Oak Cliff's characteristic twists and turns are largely due to the area's topography, and the paths and turnabouts created by the streetcar service. Residential streetcar service ended in January 1956.
Oak Cliff was annexed by Dallas in 1903, after numerous attempts beginning in 1900. The proposal had met with little success, until the community's depressed economy produced a vote in favor of annexation by eighteen votes.
Ku Klux Klan (1920s)
In April 1921, the Ku Klux Klan declared a chapter within Dallas, making themselves known by not only beating and branding a local black hotel elevator operator, but by also parading in downtown Dallas with nearly 800 hooded Klansmen in attendance. The Dallas chapter, known as “Klavern 66”, moved its meeting hall into Oak Cliff due to a large increase in members shortly after being announced. Klavern 66 was able to spread their influence by producing their own newspaper, Texas 100% American, which was projected to circulate approximately 18,000 copies. In March 1922, another well-known Ku Klux Klan beating occurred, this time in Oak Cliff, against a tailor named W.J Gilbert, as reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Residential segregation (1930s to 1953)
The Great Depression caused Dallas’ economy to suffer, resulting in the Oak Cliff's black community contributing to approximately one-half of the city's unemployment population. As black people were known to be considered first for layoffs, a need for low-income housing quickly rose. As a result, 86% of Oak Cliff's black population was forced into inhabiting sub-standard housing, commonly located on what was considered as the most undesirable and unlivable parts of Dallas. Violence broke out in Oak Cliff between its black and white citizens over the issue at hand. The Dallas mayor at the time, Woodall Rodgers, was documented as criticizing Oak Cliff's black community for inciting the violence and not being accepting of their residential segregation.
In 1952, the production and advertising company Keitz & Herndon was founded in Oak Cliff.
School desegregation (starting in 1954)
In apprehension to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling in 1954, the city of Dallas resisted desegregating their schools with the help of federal judges such as Judge William H. Atwell, the Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. To combat the inevitability of desegregation of schools, Dallas, in 1961, initiated a "Stairstep Plan". The proposed plan stated that all DISD schools would begin desegregation one grade level per year, beginning with the first grade. DISD declared all of their schools desegregated in 1967, which was later found to be inherently false. In July 1971, it was discovered that out of the total 180 DISD schools, 159 schools met the criteria to be classified as a one-race school (90% of the student population being either Black, Mexican American or Anglo). At the conclusion of the case in August 1971, Judge William M. Taylor of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, ruled in favor of a majority-to-minority transfer program. The program stated that all DISD students who attended schools where their race made up the majority of the student population would integrate into schools where their race was a minority by offering free transportation by bus. For the next few decades Oak Cliff schools, along with those in South Dallas, became the focus of a long-running and bitter court battle over desegregation, one overseen by federal judge Barefoot Sanders. All of DISD's schools were officially declared desegregated by the city in 2003.
Natural disasters
In April 1908, the Trinity River flooded its banks, rising to a height of by April 21. A temporary recession occurred, but rains continued into May, finally raising the river's height to . The only bridge remaining that connected Oak Cliff with Dallas after the flood was the Zang Boulevard Turnpike, an earthen fill with a single steel span across the river channel, slightly to the north of the present Houston Street Viaduct. About this time, George B. Dealey, publisher of the Morning News, returned from a trip to Kansas City with the idea of securing for Dallas an intracity causeway similar to the one there. From his proposal sprang the Houston Street Viaduct (originally named the Oak Cliff Viaduct), begun October 24, 1910, and opened to traffic February 22, 1912, acclaimed as the longest concrete bridge in the world. This latter designation was later disputed as a publicity stunt.
In 1909, a disastrous fire occurred in Oak Cliff, consuming fourteen blocks of residences, including the Briggs Sanitorium.
On April 2, 1957, a tornado ripped through Oak Cliff as part of the Early-April 1957 tornado outbreak sequence, killing 10 people and causing more than $1 million in damages.
Politics
Dallas City Council
Oak Cliff is represented by four members of the Dallas City Council, out of a total of fourteen council members for the city as a whole. Using the boundaries described above, two of the council districts fall completely in Oak Cliff (Districts 1 and 4), while two others partially represent Oak Cliff (Districts 3 and 8).
District 1: Chad West
District 3: Zarin Gracey
District 4: Carolyn King Arnold
District 8: Tennell Atkins
Dallas County Commissioners Court
Oak Cliff is represented by two members of the Dallas County Commissioners Court. Both of these commissioners represent other areas of Dallas County, but Oak Cliff is within their district boundaries.
District 1: Dr. Elba Garcia
District 3: John Wiley Price
Texas House of Representatives
Oak Cliff is represented by several members of the Texas Legislature. All of the representatives listed below represent portions of Oak Cliff.
House District 100: Rep. Venton Jones
House District 103: Rep. Rafael Anchia
House District 104: Rep. Jessica Gonzalez
House District 110: Rep. Toni Rose
House District 111: Rep. Yvonne Davis
Texas Senate
Oak Cliff is represented by two members of the Texas Senate. Senator Royce West represents most of Oak Cliff while a portion of west Oak Cliff is represented by Senator Nathan Johnson.
Senate District 16: Rep. Nathan Johnson
Senate District 23: Sen. Royce West
Neighborhoods
Arcadia Park Shale
Beckley Club Estates
Beverly Hills
Bishop Arts District
Brentwood
Brettonwoods
Bronx Park
Brooklyn Heights
Carver Heights
Cedar Haven
Cedar Oaks
Crestwood
Dallas Land & Loan Phase I & II
Dells District
Druid Hills
Elmwood
El Tivoli Place
Encinos Park
Five Mile (Dallas)
Glen Oaks (Dallas)|Glen Oaks
Hampton Hills
Hideaway Valley
Kernwood
Kessler Circle
Kessler Highlands
Kessler Park
Kessler Plaza, Dallas
Kiest - Polk
Kiest Square
Kiestwood
Kimball Estates
Kings Highway Conservation District
Kidd Springs
Lake Cliff
Las Haciendas (Marion dr)(Dallas)
Las Villas (Dallas)
Legendary Hollow
Los Encinos
Loupot Heights
L.O. Daniel
Mountain Creek (Dallas)
North Bishop Avenue Commercial Historic District
North Cliff
Oakland Terrace
Oakland Hills, Woodtown
Oak Park Estates
Oak Tree Colony (The Countrytown)
Pinnacle Park
Polk Terrace
Ravinia Heights
Rolandale
Ruthmede Place
Skyline Heights
Southern Hills
Stevens Park Estates
Stevens Park Village
Summit Lawn
Sunset Crest
Sunset Hills (Dallas)
Tenth Street Historic District
The Bottom
The States (Dallas)
Timbergrove Circle(Kessler Park Dallas)
Trinity Heights
Twin Oaks
Vista Real
Western Park
Westmount (Dallas)
Wheatland Estates
Winnetka Heights
Wynnewood
In addition, the Oak Cliff area encompasses Cockrell Hill, a separate municipality which is an enclave of Dallas.
Transportation
Light rail
DART
Dallas Zoo Station
Tyler/Vernon Station
Hampton Station
Westmoreland Station
Streetcar
The Dallas Streetcar is a modern-streetcar line connecting Oak Cliff with downtown Dallas. It opened in April 2015, and extensions are planned.
Highways
Interstate 30
Interstate 35E
U.S. Highway 67
Education
Public
The Dallas Independent School District operates district public schools.
Zoned high schools within the Oak Cliff area:
W.H. Adamson High School - 4A - Western (The replacement campus opened in 2012)
Sunset High School - 5A
Franklin D. Roosevelt High School - 4A - eastern
South Oak Cliff High School - 5A - southern
David W. Carter High School - 5A
Justin F. Kimball High School - 4A
Moisés E. Molina High School - 5A
A.W Brown Fellowship Leadership Academy Charter School
Optional high schools within the Oak Cliff area:
New Tech High School
Barack Obama Male Leadership Academy (all male)
Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Magnet Center
In 2011 the district closed Maynard Jackson Middle School. Prior to summer 2011 the community often complained about poor conditions at the school. DISD rezoned the students to Kennedy Curry Middle School in southern Dallas.
Zan Wesley Holmes Jr. Middle School, which opened in 2012, is in Oak Cliff.
Rosemont Elementary School is located in North Oak Cliff. In 2015 of The Dallas Morning News wrote that it had "strong academics, passionate students and devoted parents" and that it "is considered a neighborhood gem in North Oak Cliff". The parents stated that principal Anna Brining had worked to make the school strong; in 2015 DISD notified Brining that her contract will not be renewed.
In addition, Life School, a state charter school operator, has the K-12 Oak Cliff campus.
Private
High schools
Bishop Dunne Catholic School - TAPPS
Tyler Street Christian Academy - TAPPS
Post-secondary
University of North Texas at Dallas
Paul Quinn College
Christ for the Nations Institute
Mountain View College (part of the Dallas County Community College system)
In popular culture
Oak Cliff has been home to a long list of musicians. When T-Bone Walker made his debut with Columbia in 1929, he lived in Oak Cliff, and recorded as Oak Cliff T-Bone. Edie Brickell's second album included a song about life in Oak Cliff titled "Oak Cliff Bra". Other musicians from Oak Cliff include Michael Martin Murphey, rap artist MO3 Yella Beezy, Stevie Ray Vaughan, B. W. Stevenson, The D.O.C., Ray Wylie Hubbard and Jimmie Vaughan. Actors Yvonne Craig (television's first Batgirl) and Stephen Tobolowsky lived in Oak Cliff.
Oak Cliff is home to the Sour Grapes art collective, founded by Carlos Donjuan, with his brothers Arturo and Miguel in 2000. The collective has murals throughout the Dallas area.
Former NBA Player and now Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman grew up in Oak Cliff.
Omar Gonzalez, a defender for Toronto in Major League Soccer and the U.S. national team, was born and raised in Oak Cliff.
Oak Cliff is the home of the Texas Theatre, located in West Jefferson Boulevard, where former resident Lee Harvey Oswald, the man suspected of killing U.S. President John F. Kennedy and shooting Dallas Police officer JD Tippit at 10th and Patton Streets, was arrested. The theater has appeared in many books and movies on the Kennedy assassination, including Oliver Stone's 1991 film, JFK. On November 22, 1963, Warren "Butch" Burroughs, who ran the concession stand at the theatre, said that Oswald came into the theater between 1:00 and 1:07 pm; he also claimed he sold Oswald popcorn at 1:15 p.m. Julia Postal later said that Burroughs initially told her the same thing although he later denied this. Theatre patron, Jack Davis, also corroborated Burroughs' time, claiming he observed Oswald in the theatre prior to 1:20 pm.
Oak Cliff is the setting of City Limit, the novel by Lantzee Miller is a coming-of-age story and metaphorical portrait of the beginning of Oak Cliff's recent rebirth and self redefinition.
Dallas radio station KLIF (the call letters survive today on different frequencies on both AM and FM) was named after Oak Cliff, the community the station was originally licensed to cover when it was founded in 1947.
References
Further reading
Updated July 12, 2013.
External links
Map of North Oak Cliff Neighborhoods
Former cities in Texas
Populated places established in 1886 |
421469 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair%20Deal | Fair Deal | The Fair Deal was a set of proposals put forward by U.S. President Harry S. Truman to Congress in 1945 and in his January 1949 State of the Union address. More generally, the term characterizes the entire domestic agenda of the Truman administration, from 1945 to 1953. It offered new proposals to continue New Deal liberalism, but with a conservative coalition controlling Congress, only a few of its major initiatives became law and then only if they had considerable GOP support. As Richard Neustadt concludes, the most important proposals were aid to education, national health insurance, the Fair Employment Practices Commission, and repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act. They were all debated at length, then voted down. Nevertheless, enough smaller and less controversial items passed that liberals could claim some success.
Philosophy
A liberal Democrat of the Midwestern populist tradition, Truman was determined to both continue the legacy of the New Deal and to make Franklin Roosevelt's proposed Economic Bill of Rights a reality, while making his own mark on social policy.
In a scholarly article published in 1972, historian Alonzo Hamby argued that the Fair Deal reflected the "vital center" approach to liberalism which rejected totalitarianism, was suspicious of excessive concentrations of government power, and honored the New Deal as an effort to achieve a "democratic socialist society." Solidly based upon the New Deal tradition in its advocacy of wide-ranging social legislation, the Fair Deal differed enough to claim a separate identity. The Depression did not return after the war and the Fair Deal had to contend with prosperity and an optimistic future. The Fair Dealers thought in terms of abundance rather than depression scarcity. Economist Leon Keyserling argued that the liberal task was to spread the benefits of abundance throughout society by stimulating economic growth. Agriculture Secretary Charles F. Brannan wanted to unleash the benefits of agricultural abundance and to encourage the development of an urban-rural Democratic coalition. However, the Brannan Plan was defeated by strong conservative opposition in Congress and by his unrealistic confidence in the possibility uniting urban labor and farm owners who distrusted rural insurgency. The Korean War made military spending the nation's priority and killed almost the whole Fair Deal but did encourage the pursuit of economic growth.
Nevertheless, some of the Fair Deal's progressive policies were enacted piecemeal by legislation during Truman's time in office, and further enactments continued under the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, culminating in the sweeping tide of progressive legislation under Lyndon Johnson's Great Society agenda.
1945 Proposals
In September 1945, Truman addressed Congress and presented a 21-point program of domestic legislation outlining a series of proposed actions in the fields of economic development and social welfare. The measures that Truman proposed to Congress included:
Major improvements in the coverage and adequacy of the unemployment compensation system.
Substantial increases in the minimum wage, together with broader coverage.
The maintenance and extension of price controls to keep down the cost of living in the transition to a peacetime economy.
A pragmatic approach towards drafting legislation eliminating wartime agencies and wartime controls, taking legal difficulties into account.
Legislation to ensure full employment.
Legislation to make the Fair Employment Practice Committee permanent.
The maintenance of relations with both industry and unions.
The extension of the United States Employment Service to provide jobs for demobilized military personnel.
Increased aid to farmers.
The removal of the restrictions on eligibility for voluntary enlistment and allowing the armed forces to enlist a greater number of volunteers.
The enactment of broad and comprehensive housing legislation.
The establishment of a single Federal research agency.
A major revision of the taxation system.
The encouragement of surplus-property disposal.
Greater levels of assistance to small businesses.
Improvements in federal aid to war veterans.
A major expansion of public works, conserving and building up natural resources.
The encouragement of post-war reconstruction and settling the obligations of the Lend-Lease Act.
The introduction of a decent pay scale for all Federal Government employees—executive, legislative, and judicial.
The promotion of the sale of ships to remove the uncertainty regarding the disposal of America's large surplus tonnage following the end of hostilities.
Legislation to bring about the acquisition and retention of stockpiles of materials necessary for meeting the defense needs of the nation.
Finally, Truman announced that he would soon "communicate with the Congress recommending a national health program to provide adequate medical care for all Americans and to protect them from financial loss and hardships resulting from illness and accident." (See the Healthcare section below.)
Truman did not send proposed legislation to Congress; he expected Congress to draft the bills. Many of these proposed reforms, however, were never realized due to the opposition of the conservative majority in Congress, further solidified after the Republicans took control of both houses in the 1946 midterm elections. Despite these setbacks, Truman's proposals to Congress became more and more abundant over the course of his presidency, and by 1948 a legislative program that was more comprehensive came to be known as the "Fair Deal".
1949 Proposals
In his 1949 State of the Union address to Congress on January 5, 1949, Truman stated that "Every segment of our population, and every individual, has a right to expect from his government a fair deal." The proposed measures included:
federal aid to education,
a large tax cut for low-income earners
the abolition of poll taxes
an anti-lynching law
a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission
a farm aid program
increased public housing
an immigration bill
new TVA-style public works projects
the establishment of a new Department of Welfare
the repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act, regulating the activities of labor unions
an increase in the minimum wage from 40 to 75 cents an hour
national health insurance
expanded Social Security coverage, and
a $4 billion tax increase to reduce the national debt and finance these programs.
Despite a mixed record of legislative success, the Fair Deal remains significant in establishing the call for universal health care as a rallying cry for the Democratic Party. Lyndon B. Johnson credited Truman's unfulfilled program as influencing Great Society measures such as Medicare that Johnson successfully pushed through Congress during the 1960s.
Opposition and progress
The Fair Deal reforms helped to transform the United States from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy. In the context of postwar reconstruction and the Cold War, the Fair Deal sought to preserve and extend the liberal tradition of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. However, the Fair Deal faced much opposition from the many conservative politicians who wanted a reduced role of the federal government. During these postwar years, the nation enjoyed a return to prosperity not seen since before the Great Depression, and support for conservative politicians grew.
The Fair Deal faced opposition by a coalition of conservative Republicans and predominantly southern conservative Democrats. However, despite strong opposition, there were elements of Truman's agenda that did win congressional approval, such as the public housing subsidies cosponsored by Republican Robert A. Taft under the 1949 National Housing Act, which funded slum clearance and the construction of 810,000 units of low-income housing over a period of six years.
Truman was also helped by the election of a Democratic Congress in 1948. According to Eric Leif Davin, the 1949–50 Congress ‘was the most liberal Congress since 1938 and produced more “New-Deal-Fair Deal” legislation than any Congress between 1938 and Johnson's Great Society of the mid-1960s.” As noted by one study
“This was the Congress that reformed the Displaced Persons Act, increased the minimum wage, doubled the hospital construction program, authorized the National Science Foundation and the rural telephone program, suspended the ‘sliding scale’ on price supports, extended the soil conservation program, provided new grants for planning state and local public works and plugged the long-standing merger loophole in the Clayton Act…Moreover, as protector, as defender, wielder of the veto against encroachments on the liberal preserve, Truman left a record of considerable success – an aspect of the Fair Deal not to be discounted.”
Although Truman was unable to implement his Fair Deal program in its entirety, a great deal of social and economic progress took place in the late forties and early fifties. A census report confirmed that gains in housing, education, living standards, and income under the Truman administration were unparalleled in American history. The minimum wage had also been increased while Social Security benefits had been doubled, and 8 million veterans had attended college by the end of the Truman administration as a result of the G.I. Bill, which subsidized the businesses, training, education, and housing of millions of returning veterans.
Millions of homes had been financed through previous government programs, and a start was made in slum clearance. Poverty was also significantly reduced, with one estimate suggesting that the percentage of Americans living in poverty had fallen from 33% of the population in 1949 to 28% by 1952. Incomes had risen faster than prices, which meant that real living standards were considerably higher than seven years earlier. Progress had also been made in civil rights, with the desegregation of both the federal civil Service and the armed forces and the creation of the Commission on Civil Rights. In fact, according to one historian, Truman had “done more than any President since Lincoln to awaken American conscience to the issues of civil rights".
Legislation and programs
Note: This listing contains reforms drawn up by the Truman Administration together with reforms drawn up by individual Congressmen. The latter have been included because it is arguable that the progressive nature of these reforms (such as the Water Pollution Law, which was partly a Republican initiative) was compatible with the liberalism of the Fair Deal.
Civil Rights
As Senator, Truman had not supported the nascent Civil Rights Movement. In a 1947 speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which marked the first time a sitting President had ever addressed the group, Truman said "Every man should have the right to a decent home, the right to an education, the right to adequate medical care, the right to a worthwhile job, the right to an equal share in the making of public decisions through the ballot, and the right to a fair trial in a fair court."
As President, he put forward many civil rights programs but they were met with a lot of resistance by southern Democrats. All his legislative proposals were blocked. However, he used presidential executive orders to end discrimination in the armed forces and denied government contracts to firms with racially discriminatory practices. He also named African Americans to federal posts. Except for nondiscrimination provisions of the Housing Act of 1949, Truman had to be content with civil rights' gains achieved by executive order or through the federal courts. Vaughan argues that by continuing appeals to Congress for civil rights legislation, Truman helped reverse the long acceptance of segregation and discrimination by establishing integration as a moral principle.
Healthcare
On November 19, 1945, Truman spent a Special Message to Congress recommending the adoption and funding of "a comprehensive and modern health program for the Nation, consisting of five major parts":
Construction of hospitals and related facilities
Expansion of public health, maternal, and child care services
Medical education and research
Prepayment of medical costs through a compulsory national health insurance program, covering medical, hospital, nursing, and laboratory services
Protection against loss of wages through sickness and disability through a national disability insurance program
On the same day, New York Senator Robert F. Wagner introduced S. 1606, known as the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill, containing legislative provisions to enact Truman's national health program into law. After intense debates in Congress, the bill failed to pass.
However, a number of other public-health initiatives were enacted during Truman's presidency:
A bill was signed which authorized Federal agencies to provide minor medical and dental services to employees (1945).
The National Mental Health Act (1946) authorized federal support for mental health research and treatment programs.
The Water Pollution Law (1948) provided funds for sewage treatment system and pollution research while empowering the Justice Department to file suit against polluters.
The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (1947) introduced regulations on the use of pesticide in food production.
The Hill-Burton Act (Hospital Survey and Construction Act) (1946) established a federal program of financial assistance for the modernization and construction of hospital facilities. The program brought national standards and financing to local hospitals, and raised standards of medical care throughout the United States during the course of the 1950s and 1960s. While the legislation favored middle-class communities because it required local financial contributions, it channeled federal funds to poor communities, thus raising hospital standards and equity in access to quality care. The program required hospitals assisted by federal funding to provide emergency treatment to the uninsured and a reasonable volume of free or reduced cost care to poor Americans.
The Hospital Survey and Construction Amendments of 1949 raised the amount of federal funding available and raised the federal share of hospital construction to two-thirds. These amendments made it possible for less-wealthy communities to benefit from the Hill-Burton Act of 1946.
A program was established to fund payments to medical vendors for care of aged persons on low incomes (1950).
Funding was authorized for research and demonstration relating to the coordination, utilization, and development of hospital services.
Grants to states for cancer control were introduced (1947).
The Omnibus Medical Research Act (1950) authorized the establishment of the Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness and the transmutation of the Experimental Biology and medical Institute into the much larger Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases. The legislation also empowered the Surgeon General to establish additional institutes when he felt that they were necessary, and also to ‘conduct and support research and research training relating to other diseases and groups of diseases.’
The Atomic Energy Commission was directed by Congress to investigate the application of atomic research to cancer therapies, providing some $5 million for this purpose (1950).
A Clinical and Laboratory Research Center was established (1947).
The research construction provisions of the Appropriations Act for FY 1948 provided funds "for the acquisition of a site, and the preparation of plans, specifications, and drawings, for additional research buildings and a 600-bed clinical research hospital and necessary accessory buildings related thereto to be used in general medical research ...."
The National Heart Act (1948) authorized the National Heart Institute to assist, conduct, and foster research, provide training, and to provide help to the states in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of heart disease.
The National Institute of Dental Research was authorized by the National Dental Research Act (1948) to “conduct, assist, and foster dental research; provide training; and cooperate with the states in the prevention and control of dental diseases.”
A National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases was established (1950).
A National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness was established (1950).
The Durham-Humphrey Amendment (1951) defined “the kinds of drugs that cannot be safely used without medical supervision and restricts their sale to prescription by a licensed practitioner.”
Welfare
Under Truman, many adjustments were made to the social welfare system, although one of his key aims, to extend Social Security coverage to 25 million Americans, was never accomplished. Despite this, 10 million received Social Security coverage.
The Federal Railroad Disability Insurance program was enacted (1946).
The Social Security Act was amended (1950) to provide a new category of state aid to the totally and permanently disabled.
Throughout 1950, more than thirty major changes were made to Social Security. Compulsory coverage was extended to residents of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, federal employees not covered by federal pensions, domestic servants, most self-employed workers, and agricultural workers. State and local government workers were provided with the option of joining the system. Survivor's benefits were increased and expanded, and Social Security benefits were increased significantly for current beneficiaries by 77.5%. Changes were also made to increase the progressivity of benefits. Another amendment granted wage credits toward all Social Security benefits for military service performed between September 1940 and July 1947.
The Aid to Families with Dependent Children program was expanded to include support for caregivers (1950).
Grants to states for public assistance to needy individuals, those who were totally and permanently disabled, and also to maternal and child welfare services, were broadened and increased.
The Displaced Persons Act admitted individuals who were victims of persecution by the Nazi government.
The admissions numbers for displaced persons were doubled to 400,000 (1950).
Federal financial participation of public assistance payments was increased (1946).
Compulsory contribution to Social Security was expanded (in principle) to all dependent employees and workers (1946).
The Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) was amended in 1946 to permit states where employees made contributions under the unemployment insurance program to use some or all of these contributions for the payment of disability benefits.
The Social Security Act was amended in 1946 to provide survivor benefits to the dependents of World War II veterans who died within three years of having been discharged from the military. The amendments considered veterans of the Second World War to be fully insured under Social Security for purposes of survivor benefits, even if they had not completed the required number of quarters of covered employment under Social Security.
The Civil Service Retirement Act was amended (1948) to provide protection for the survivors of Federal employees.
The Civil Service Retirement Act of 1930 was amended (1945) to provide retirement credit, in computing length of service, to persons who left Government service to enter the armed forces.
The Internal Revenue Code and the Social Security Act were amended (1945) in order to extend coverage to all employees of the Bonneville Power Administration who were not covered under the Federal Civil Service Retirement Act and therefore had no retirement protection.
The Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act and Railroad Retirement Act amendments (1946) established monthly survivor benefits and sickness and maternity benefits for railroad employees. The Social Security Act was also amended by the provision making wages in railroad employment applicable for survivor benefits under the old-age and survivors insurance program.
The Social Security Act was amended (1946) to provide coverage to private maritime employees under State unemployment insurance, monthly benefits under old age and survivors insurance for survivors of certain World War II veterans, and temporary unemployment benefits to seamen with wartime Federal employment. Permission was given to States, with employee contributions under their unemployment insurance laws, to use such funds for temporary disability insurance benefits. There would also be greater Federal sharing in public assistance payments for a specified period, and larger grants were to be provided for maternal and child health and child welfare, as well as the extension of these programs to the Virgin Islands.
A bill was approved (1947) which extended to July 1949 the time in which income from nursing service and agricultural labor could be disregarded in making old age assistance payments.
A law as passed (1947) under which certain aged recipients of assistance could continue, until July 1949, to care for the sick or work for wages on a farm without having such wages jeopardize their assistance payment.
The Railroad Retirement Act was amended (1948) to increase certain survivor and retirement benefits.
A law was passed (1948) which raised railroad pensions by 20%, yet reduced taxes on payrolls.
A law was passed (1948) which increased certain benefits payable under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers Compensation Act.
A law was approved (1949) which authorized appropriations for the Federal Security Administrator to meet the emergency needs of crippled children for fiscal year 1949, in addition to funds authorized under the Social Security Act.
Increases in Social Security benefits were authorized (1948).
An act for the rehabilitation of the Navajo and Hopi tribes of Indians was approved (1950), which included a provision to increase the Federal participation in public assistance payments.
The Social Security Act of 1950 increased welfare benefits, extended the coverage of Social Security to elderly Americans, and raised the minimum wage. These benefits appealed to both middle-class and working-class Americans. Farm and domestic employees and nonfarm self-employed persons came to be covered for first time under the Social Security Old-Age Insurance pension program. As a result of these changes, an additional 10.5 million Americans were covered by Social Security. According to one historian the 1950 act “was almost as significant as the original 1935 legislation.”
In September 1950, benefits began to be paid to dependent husbands, dependent widowers, wives under the age of sixty-five with children in their care, and divorced wives.
A law was signed (1952) which increased sickness and unemployment benefits for railroad workers by 30% to 60%, and was financed by a payroll levy on the railroads.
The Social Security Act was amended (1952) to extend for another year “the time within which State Governments could make agreements that were retroactive to January 1, 1951, for old-age and survivors insurance coverage of State and local Government employees”.
The Federal Property and Administrative Services Act (1949) provided the Federal Security Administrator with the authority to dispose of surplus Federal property to nonprofit or tax-supported educational institutions for health or educational purposes.
The Social Security Act of 1952 increased benefits under the old-age and survivors insurance program, extended the period of wage credits for military service through December 31, 1953, liberalized the retirement test and raised the retirement test from $50 to $75 a month. The legislation also changed, for a two-year period, the grant formula for public assistance payments in order to make additional funds available to the States.
Social Security coverage was extended to farm workers (1951).
Unemployment coverage was extended.
A bill was passed (1952) which raised Social Security benefits by 12.5%.
Labor
A centerpiece of the Fair Deal—the repeal of the Taft–Hartley Act — failed to pass. As Plotke notes, "By the early 1950s repeal of Taft–Hartley was only a symbolic Democratic platform statement."
A new Fair Labor Standards Act established a 75-cent-an-hour minimum wage.
The Employment Act of 1946 created a clear legal obligation on the part of the federal government to use all practical means ‘to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power.’ The Act also established “the basic core of machinery for such economic planning – the Council of Economic Advisers working directly for the President, and the joint Committee on the Economic report in Congress.” Under the Employment Act, within two decades following its passage, swift measures taken by the Federal Reserve authorities and by the administration in charge held in check four recessions, those of 1948–49, 1953–54, 1957–58, and 1960–61.
The Office of Economic Stabilization was re-established (1946) in an effort to control rising prices.
The Federal Employees Pay Act (1946) brought about a 14% increase in the base pay of most Government workers whose positions were subjected to the Classification Act of 1923.
The Fair Labor Standards Amendments of 1949 introduced various provisions designed to “assure the health, efficiency and general well-being of workers.”
The Federal Employees’ Compensation Act Amendments of 1949 broadened the coverage of the act while increasing benefits.
The Wagner-Peyser Act was extended to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Moderate tax relief for low-income earners was passed by Congress.
The first code of federal regulations for mine safety was authorized by Congress (1947).
The Federal Coal Mine Safety Act of 1952 provided for annual inspections in certain underground coal mines, and provided the Bureau with limited enforcement authority, including the power to issue violation notices and imminent danger withdrawal orders. The Act also authorized the assessment of civil penalties against mine operators for refusing to give inspectors access to mine property or for noncompliance with withdrawal orders, although no provision was made for monetary penalties for noncompliance with the safety provisions.
Child labor was finally prohibited through an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act(1949).
The number of employees covered by the federal minimum wage was increased.
The Judiciary and Judicial Procedure Act of 1948 prohibited employers from intimidating, discharging, threatening to discharge, or coercing permanent employees for serving jury duty.
A previous Railway Labour Act was amended by a law effective January the 10th 1951, “to permit carriers and employees covered by the act to bargain collectively for a union shop and check-off of union dues.”
A law of January the 10th 1951, as noted by one study, “authorized deductions pursuant to the written consent of seamen, to be held in trust for the establishment of benefits for the sole use of seamen or their families for the purpose of providing medical and hospital care, retirement or survivors’ pensions, life insurance, unemployment benefits, and sickness or disability benefits.”
The McGuire Act (1952) strengthened fair trade laws by enabling manufacturers to extend price maintenance even to retailers “who refused to sign contracts.”
Education
As Donaldson notes, the major proposal for large-scale federal aid to education "died quickly, mostly over whether aid should be given to private schools."
The National School Lunch and Milk Act (1946) established school lunch programs across the United States, with the purpose of safeguarding "the health and well-being of the nation's children and to encourage the consumption of agricultural abundance". This legislation introduced the provision of commodity donations and federal grants for non-profit milk and lunches in private and public schools. The program had the strong support of conservative Congressmen from rural districts.
The George-Barden Act (1946) expanded federal support for vocational education.
The Fulbright Program was established (1946), becoming one of the “world’s largest and most respected cooperative educational programs for the interchange of graduate students, teachers, and scholars.”
The National Science Foundation was established to support education and research in science.
The School Construction Act (Public Law 815) authorized a 3-year program “calling for the construction of critically needed school facilities in those school districts overburdened by Federal activities.”
The Federal Impacted Areas Aid Program (1950) authorized federal aid to school districts in which “large numbers of federal employees and tax-exempt federal property create either a substantial increase in public school enrollments or a significant reduction in local property tax revenues.”
Long-term low-interest loans to colleges for dormitory construction were authorized (1950).
Following the outbreak of the Korean War aid was provided for current expenses and for the construction of additional school facilities in districts which had become centers of wartime activity and were overwhelmed by the arrival of military personnel and their families.
$96.5 million was appropriated for school construction under P.L. 81-815 (1950).
The federal government funded scholarships and loans for nursing students and provided aid to medical schools in order to meet the growing need for caregivers.
$23 million was appropriated for school operating expenses under P.L. 81-874 (1950).
Housing
During the Truman years, the role of the federal government in the field of housing provision was extended, with one major reform in particular (the Housing Act of 1949) passed with the support of the conservative senator Robert A. Taft.
The Housing Act of 1949 was a major legislative accomplishment stemming from the collaboration of the Fair Deal supporters with conservative leader Senator Taft. This led to the allocation of federal funds to go towards 800,000 units of public housing.
The Federal Housing and Rent Act (1947) was passed to encourage the construction of new rental housing in cities.
The Housing and Rent Act (1949) extended federal rent control authority.
The Farmers Home Administration was established (1946) to assist self-help rural housing groups as well as to make grants and loans for the repair and construction of rural homes.
More money was provided for farm housing.
The Federal Housing Administration's mortgage insurance programs were liberalized, authorizing a program of limited technical research and setting up a new program for guaranteeing a minimum yield on direct investments in housing.
The Housing Act of 1950 enlarged and liberalized the loan guarantee privileges of Second World War veterans by administering a direct loan program for those veterans who were unable to acquire private home financing. The legislation also authorized a program of mortgage insurance for co-operative housing projects, a program of technical aid, and a new program of mortgage insurance for low-priced new rural housing.
The Housing and Home Finance Agency was established (1947), promising co-ordination of the principal nonfarm housing functions of the federal government.
Rent controls were extended (1951) to cover previously exempted categories.
Funds were provided for slum clearance and urban renewal.
Appropriations for the Farmer's Home Administration were increased (1950).
Veterans
Veterans benefits were non-controversial, and won support from left and right.
The Veterans' regulations were amended (1945) to provide increased rates of pension for certain service-incurred disabilities, generally on a parity with rates payable for similar disabilities under the World War I Veterans' Act, 1924, as amended.
The Veteran's Readjustment Assistance Act (1952) included provisions for unemployment compensation for veterans under a uniform Federal formula.
Legislation was approved (1952) which increased veteran's compensation and pension rates.
A law was signed (1949), which extended for one year to June 1950 reconversion and unemployment benefits for seamen provided by Title XIII of the Social Security Act.
$3.7 billion was spent of GI benefits from 1945 to 1949.
The Social Security Act was amended (1952) to grant wage credits toward Social Security benefits for each month of military service after July 1947 and before January 1954.
Laws were enacting permitting the payment to veterans of retroactive benefits during hospitalization, while a time extension was enacted for filling in certain cases claiming benefit and compensation.
Agriculture
Dean shows that the major Fair Deal initiative, the "Brannan Plan" proposed by Secretary of Agriculture Brannan, failed in Congress because Truman delayed too long in presenting it before Congress and it lost initiative and because he never consulted with top leaders in farm legislation. A separate Anderson Act was signed in 1949 that had more in common with the Republican-sponsored Agricultural Act of 1948 than Secretary Brannan's plan did.<ref>Virgil W. Dean, "Charles F. Brannan and the rise and fall of Truman's 'Fair Deal' for farmers," Agricultural History, Winter 1995, Vol. 69 Issue 1, pp 28–53</ref>
A Conservation of Wildlife Act was passed (1946) to protect wildlife resources.
The Farmers Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act (1948) stabilized, supported and protected farm incomes and prices, assisted in maintaining adequate supplies, and facilitated an orderly distribution of commodities.
The Agricultural Act (1948) introduced a more flexible system of price supports.
The Agricultural Act (1949) maintained price supports at 90% of parity. The Act also made certain donated commodities acquired through price-support operations by the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) available for distribution to local public welfare organizations serving poor Americans, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and school lunch programs. It also authorized the CCC “to pay for added processing, packaging, and handling costs for foods acquired under price support so that recipient outlets could more fully use them”.
The Disaster Loan Act (1949) made farmers who experienced severe crop losses due to natural disasters eligible for special low-interest loans.
A loan program was authorized (1949) for expanding and improving rural telephone facilities.
The REA and soil-conservation programs were expanded.
Federal reclamation and power projects
Truman's Fair Deal reclamation program called for expanded public distribution of federally produced electric power and endorsed restrictions on the amount of land an owner could irrigate from federal water projects. Lobbying efforts by privately owned power companies prevented the spread of public utilities. Political pressure and conflicts with the Budget Bureau and the Army Corps of Engineers kept the Bureau of Reclamation from enforcing the excess land law.
Rural electrification and public power were extended.
New conservation projects were initiated.
Funds for the Tennessee Valley Authority were significantly increased.
Funds were provided for western land reclamation.
Funds were provided for hydroelectric power stations.
Flood control developments were expanded.
Some money was spent on public works.
Appropriations for the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Rural Electrification Administration were increased (1950).
Funding for the Reclamation Bureau's hydroelectric, water control, and irrigation projects in the west was increased.
See also
Economic Bill of Rights – proposed by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1944
New Deal – Franklin Roosevelt's signature program of economic reforms during the Great Depression
The New Freedom – President Wilson's proposed tariff, business, and banking reforms
New Nationalism – Proposed by ex-President Theodore Roosevelt during his 1912 run for office as a Progressive Party candidate; included provision for a national health service
Square Deal – President Theodore Roosevelt's proposals to conserve national resources, control corporate excesses, and protect consumers
References
Further reading
Donovan, Robert J. Conflict and Crisis: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945–1948 (1977); Tumultuous Years: 1949–1953 (1982) detailed 2-vol political history
Hamby, Alonzo L. Man of the People: A Life of Harry S Truman (1995)
Smith, Jason Scott. "The Fair Deal" in Daniel S. Margolies, ed. A Companion to Harry S. Truman'' (2012) pp 210–21; excerpt and text search; 630pp
United States presidential domestic programs
United States economic policy
Presidency of Harry S. Truman
Liberalism in the United States
New Deal |
421473 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Mists%20of%20Avalon | The Mists of Avalon | The Mists of Avalon is a 1983 historical fantasy novel by American writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which the author relates the Arthurian legends from the perspective of the female characters. The book follows the trajectory of Morgaine (Morgan le Fay), a priestess fighting to save her Celtic religion in a country where Christianity threatens to destroy the pagan way of life. The epic is focused on the lives of Morgaine, Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere), Viviane, Morgause, Igraine and other women of the Arthurian legend.
The Mists of Avalon is in stark contrast to most other retellings of the Arthurian tales, which consistently cast Morgan le Fay as a distant, one-dimensional evil sorceress, with little or no explanation given for her antagonism to the Round Table. In this case, Morgaine is presented as a woman with unique gifts and responsibilities at a time of enormous political and spiritual upheaval who is called upon to defend her indigenous heritage against impossible odds.
The story is told in four large parts: "Book One: Mistress of Magic", "Book Two: The High Queen", "Book Three: The King Stag", and "Book Four: The Prisoner in the Oak". The novel was a best-seller upon its publication and remains popular to this day. Bradley and Diana L. Paxson later expanded the book into the Avalon series.
Plot
The Mists of Avalon is a generations-spanning retelling of the Arthurian legend that brings it back to its Brythonic Celtic roots . The plot tells the story of the women who influence King Arthur, High King of Britain, and those around him.
The book's protagonist is Morgaine, priestess of Avalon, who is King Arthur's half-sister. Their mother Igraine is married to Uther Pendragon after Morgaine's biological father, Gorlois, is killed in battle. Rumors spread in Avalon that before Igraine knew her husband Gorlois was killed, Uther consulted with the Merlin, who used his magic to transform the king into the likeness of Gorlois and thus gain access to Igraine at Tintagel. He spent the night with her and they conceived a son, Arthur. Morgaine witnesses Uther Pendragon's accession to the throne of Caerleon after his predecessor, Ambrosius, dies of old age. Uther becomes her step-father, and he and Igraine have a son, Arthur, Morgaine's half-brother.
When Morgaine is eleven years old and Arthur six, an attempt of murder is made on Arthur's life. Their maternal aunt, the high priestess Viviane, arrives in Caerleon and advises Uther to have Arthur fostered far away from the court for his own safety. Uther agrees, and also allows Viviane to take Morgaine to Avalon, where she is trained as a priestess of the Mother Goddess. During this period, Morgaine becomes aware of the rising tension between the old Pagan and the new Christian religions. After seven years of training, Morgaine is initiated as a priestess of the Mother, and Viviane begins grooming her as the next Lady of Avalon.
Some months after her initiation, Morgaine is given in a fertility rite to the future high king of Britain. Their union is not meant to be personal, but rather a symbolic wedding between the future high king and the land he is to defend. The following morning, Morgaine and Arthur recognize each other and are horrified to realize what they have done. Two months later, Morgaine is devastated to find that she is pregnant.
After Uther dies in battle against the Saxon invaders, Arthur claims the throne of Britain despite questions about his legitimacy (he had been conceived within days of Igraine's marriage to Uther Pendragon). Since Arthur must now defend Britain against the Saxons, Viviane has Morgaine make him an enchanted scabbard that will prevent him from losing blood and gives him the sacred sword Excalibur. With the combined force of Avalon and Caerleon, Arthur repels the invaders.
As Morgaine's unborn child grows within her, so do her feelings of anger and betrayal toward Viviane, who she believes tricked her into bearing a child to her own half-brother. Unable to stay in Avalon any longer, she leaves for the court of her aunt Morgause, queen of Lothian, where she bears her son, naming him Gwydion. Spurred by her husband Lot's ambition and her own, Morgause tricks Morgaine into allowing her to rear her son. To escape Lot's unwanted advances, Morgaine leaves Lothian and returns to Arthur's court as a lady-in-waiting to the high queen, Gwenhwyfar. She does not see Gwydion again until he is grown and a Druid priest.
When Gwenhwyfar fails to produce an heir, she is convinced God is punishing her for her sins. Chiefest among them, as she believes, are her failure to persuade Arthur to outlaw pagan religious practice in Britain and her forbidden love for Galahad, Arthur's cousin and finest knight, who is also known as Lancelet. Although Lancelet reciprocates Gwenhwyfar's love, he is also Arthur's friend and an honorable man. This situation causes terrible suffering to both Lancelet and Gwenhwyfar.
On the eve of a decisive battle against the Saxons, Gwenhwyfar prevails upon Arthur to put aside his father's Pendragon banner and replace it with her own Christian banner. As her religious fanaticism grows, relations between Avalon and Caerleon grow strained. Still, in her desperation over her failure to carry a child to term, she asks Morgaine for help, threatening to have an extramarital affair so she can become pregnant. In an attempt to keep Gwenhwyfar from doing so, Morgaine reveals that Arthur already has a son, though he does not know it.
After the battle, Arthur moves his court to Camelot, which is more easily defended than Caerleon had been. Seeking to free both Lancelet and Gwenhwyfar from the forbidden love that traps them both, Morgaine tricks Lancelet into marrying Gwenhwyfar's cousin, Elaine. Some time later, during a heated argument with Arthur over their lack of an heir, Gwenhwyfar breaks Morgaine's confidence and tells Arthur he has a son. In growing suspicion and horror, Arthur summons Morgaine and orders her to tell him the truth. Morgaine obeys. Now believing that the lack of a royal heir is God's punishment for Arthur's union, however unwitting, with his own half-sister, Gwenhwyfar urges Arthur to confess the encounter to the bishop, who imposes strict penance upon him. Then she and Arthur arrange for Morgaine to marry into Wales, far from Camelot. But because of a misunderstanding, Morgaine, who had thought she would be marrying the king's younger son Accolon, a Druid priest and warrior, finds herself betrothed to King Uriens of Wales, who is old enough to be her grandfather. Arthur yearns to meet his son Gwydion and perhaps foster him at Camelot, but each time he brings up the subject with Gwenhwyfar, she refuses to discuss it.
Morgaine marries Uriens and moves to Wales, but in time begins an affair with Accolon. The "old people" of the hills, who keep to the old pagan ways, regard Accolon and Morgaine as their king and queen. King Uriens suspects nothing, but Accolon's older brother, Avalloch, begins to; at one point, he confronts Morgaine in private and tries to blackmail her into sleeping with him as well. Morgaine sends Avalloch out on a boar hunt and is magically present when the boar kills him. In his grief for his eldest son and heir, Uriens abstains from pork for the rest of his life. Morgaine tells Accolon, who is now Uriens's heir, of the sacred marriage she made with Arthur years before. She adds that they must take the kingdom back from Arthur and the Christians and bring it back under the sway of Avalon. The attempted coup fails and Arthur kills Accolon in single combat. As Uriens recovers from the shock of losing a second son, Morgaine leaves Wales forever.
Gwydion, now grown, goes to the Saxon courts to learn warfare far from Arthur's eye. Impressed by his cleverness, the Saxons name him Mordred ("Evil Counsel"). Years later, at a Pentecost feast at Camelot, he introduces himself as Queen Morgaine's son and Queen Morgause's foster son, though he calls Queen Morgause "Mother" and Morgaine by her name. Because of his close resemblance to Lancelet, he must often tell people that Lancelet is not his father. To earn his knighthood with no suspicion of preferential treatment, Gwydion challenges Lancelet to single combat during a tourney and they fight. As they start to fight in earnest, Gwenhwyfar, who has warmed to Gwydion in the meantime, protests and Arthur interrupts the match. Lancelet makes Gwydion a knight of the Round Table, naming him Mordred.
Morgaine returns to Camelot under guise with another sister of Avalon during the Pentecost festival. At the start of the holy rites, the Sacred Regalia of Avalon, the sword, the spear, the dish, and the cup, are presented to the church as an offering, having been stolen from Avalon. Enraged and wielding great magic, Morgaine envokes the Great Mother Goddess to take them back. The assembled court sees the manifestation of the Grail as a holy revelation and Morgaine as the Virgin Mary. When the knights of the Round Table leave to search for the Holy Grail, Mordred attempts to usurp the throne. In a climactic battle, the armies of Arthur and Mordred fight and Arthur is mortally wounded. Morgaine takes the dying Arthur through the mists to Avalon, reassuring him that he did not fail in his attempt to save Britain from the approaching dark times. Arthur dies in her arms as the shoreline comes into view. Morgaine buries him in Avalon and remains there to tell the tale of Camelot.
Characters
Morgaine — Narrator, protagonist. Her character is capable of second sight (a gift of her Goddess) and transfiguration. She is of notable status in the eyes of the old tribes of Britain and the post Roman aristocracy, being both high priestess of Avalon and Queen of Cornwall in her own right. Portrayed as a tragic character, Morgaine is torn between her loyalty to Avalon and her unfulfilled love for Lancelet, although she has other lovers in the book, notably Arthur, Kevin, and Accolon. Like Arthur, she is extremely charismatic. She often considers herself the victim of fate, having no choice in the decisions she makes in life. She is doomed to witness the demise of the old ways of Avalon, but in the end makes peace with certain aspects of Christianity, as she sees that she never fought the religion itself, but rather the narrow-minded views of some of its priests. She concludes that some memory of the ancient beliefs of Britain will live on, feeling that the Goddess she worshipped did not die with the coming of Christianity: rather, the Goddess just took another form in the image of the Virgin Mary.
Uther Pendragon is the nephew and War Duke of the dead High King Ambrosius and an ambitious warlord who falls in love with Igraine. After being betrayed by his ally Gorlois (out of jealousy rather than for political reasons), he killed him and became the High King of Britain. He fathered King Arthur and died when Arthur was in his teens. Uther is portrayed as a gifted warlord and a competent ruler. He resents and respects Vivianne for the manipulations and for forcing him to keep his vow to Avalon with threatened rebellion.
Igraine is the wife in turn to Gorlois and Uther, a younger half-sister of Viviane, and the mother of Morgaine and Arthur. Originally named "Grainné, for the Goddess of the Beltane fires", Igraine was brought up in Avalon and married at the age of fifteen to Duke Gorlois of Cornwall, a mostly unhappy union for her. She is destined by Viviane and Taliesin to betray her husband, seduce Uther and produce the saviour of the Island of Britain (her son King Arthur). At first, she rebels, stating she is not a breeding mare, but ultimately falls in love with Uther and helps him defeat his enemies. However, the guilt about Gorlois torments her to the end. Igraine adores Morgaine before Uther enters, but she then ignores Morgaine when she and Uther marry and when Arthur is born. Igraine is described by many as stunningly beautiful, and her beauty is still remembered in Britain long after her death.
Gorlois is Igraine's husband and Morgaine's father. Because Igraine was so young when they married, their relationship has been strained, but Gorlois did his best to make her feel comfortable, giving her gifts and letting her keep her daughter Morgaine. Igraine does not see how he loved her until it's too late. When Gorlois suspects that Igraine has an affair with Uther, he turns on her, accuses her of being a whore and a witch, and even breaks his oath to Uther. In the end, Uther kills him for treachery.
King Arthur is the son of Igraine and Uther and younger half-brother to Morgaine. He is portrayed as an able battle commander and a brilliant political mind. He is also able to inspire fanatical love and devotion among his friends and followers. He marries Gwenhwyfar by arranged marriage for a dowry of men and fine horses, but tries to truly honor and respect her. His compassion for his suffering wife — who is tormented by her childlessness and her love for Lancelet — ultimately becomes his downfall. A twist is that he is actually aware of Gwenhwyfar and Lancelet's affair, and how unhappy both are to continually betray him, but looks the other way because he loves both his wife and his best friend too much to make them unhappy. It is suggested that, while he does love Gwenhwyfar, his deepest love is saved for Morgaine.
Gwenhwyfar is Arthur's beautiful but unhappy wife. She is brought up by a cold, unloving father, which left her with a deep inferiority complex and intense agoraphobia. Failing to produce an heir and unable to be with the love of her life, Lancelet, she falls into a deep depression and — hoping for salvation — becomes an increasingly fanatical Christian. Gwenhwyfar and Morgaine are depicted as polar opposites, similar only in their religious zealotry and desire to push Arthur towards their own ends. While Morgaine is at court, the two form an unlikely, yet genuinely affectionate friendship for several years. Several characters remark that Gwen is much more intelligent than she lets on. She is portrayed as a masterful housekeeper and performs the ceremonial role of high queen well.
Lancelet is Arthur's First Knight, Viviane's son (by Ban of Benwick) and Morgaine's cousin and first love. He is an extremely gifted and handsome warrior, but has a lifelong fear of his mother. He and Gwenhwyfar are utterly infatuated, but neither has the courage (or ruthlessness) to elope. He also loves his cousin Arthur, and perhaps loves Gwenhwyfar even more because she is so close to him. He is conflicted because of his bisexuality and his infatuation with both Arthur and Gwenhwyfar.
Mordred, a.k.a. Gwydion, is the illegitimate son of Morgaine and King Arthur. He is an unscrupulous, cunning intrigant, but in contrast to mainstream versions his motives are understandable. He sees his father Arthur as corrupt and decadent, and is convinced that he has to remove him to save Camelot. It is strongly hinted that his childhood under the cold, cunning Morgause makes him think the way he does. Mordred does share one notable trait with his mother Morgaine: he truly believes that he is a pawn of fate, with no real free will to choose his path in life. This is possibly due to the influence of the fatalistic Saxons. At one point, Mordred even lists his father's good qualities and admits that he admires Arthur in several ways. Nevertheless, Mordred remains committed to pulling his father down from the throne of Camelot. Like both his parents, Mordred is exceptionally charming. During his first stay in Camelot, he becomes greatly admired among peasant folk and nobility alike. He is also described as exceedingly handsome; a mirror image of Lancelot as a young man. This leads many to assume he is a bastard son of Lancelot by Morgaine.
Morgause is Morgaine's aunt, the younger sister of Viviane and Igraine. "Their mother, who had been really too old for childbearing, had died giving birth to Morgause. Viviane had borne a child of her own, earlier in the year; her child had died, and Viviane had taken Morgause to nurse." She is depicted as a vain, cunning character and in contrast to her sisters, she acts purely for her own gains. She bears her sisters near lifelong resentment, Igraine for her beauty and her marriages to Gorlois and Uther, and Vivianne for choosing Igraine over her, as the lynch pin in her plans for Britain. Despite her cheerful amorality, she seems to hold some true affection for Morgaine throughout the novel. She takes Morgaine in without asking any questions and treats her kindly. She seems to have had a genuinely happy marriage with Lot, who treated her as an equal and matched her in intelligence and cunning. She misses Lot long after he dies and thinks of him often. She feels no regret in her regular adultery and plans to use Mordred as a vehicle for her power. She seeks to be high queen of Britain, in name or de facto, for most of the novel.
Patricius, modernized as St. Patrick, is Camelot's most powerful Christian priest who drove the "snakes" (druids) from Ireland. He is portrayed in an extremely negative light, as a ruthless, misogynist religious fundamentalist.
Elaine is Gwenhwyfar's cousin who eventually becomes Lancelet's wife. Elaine greatly resembles her cousin Gwenhwyfar in looks (albeit not in personality), which plays into her plan to marry Lancelet under dishonest circumstances. Morgaine offers Lancelet to Elaine on the condition that she is given Elaine's first daughter to rear in Avalon. With Lancelet she has three children: Galahad, Nimue, and Gwenhwyfar (named after the queen). She is less passive than she lets on, and is able to successfully goad Morgaine into helping her marry Lancelet.
Viviane is — for the most time — the High Priestess of Avalon. She is portrayed as a strong religious and political leader; her fatal flaw is her willingness to use others in her quest to save Avalon without thinking of their emotional suffering. She is misunderstood because her family has little contact with her and that she would have to do anything to keep Camelot and Avalon and the priestess of Avalon alive in everyone's hearts. Viviane is killed by her son Balan's foster-brother, Balin.
Taliesin (the Merlin of Britain) is the old Archdruid and harpist of Avalon. He is revered by Christian and pagan alike as a wise, kind old man. He fathered Igraine, Morgause and Niniane. His mental health continually deteriorates throughout the story. (In this retelling, "Merlin" is a title rather than a proper name.)
Kevin (Merlin of Britain) succeeds Taliesin after his death. He is a horribly disfigured hunchback, having been burned in a fire as a child, but can sing like an angel. He becomes Morgaine's lover and later her worst enemy. Foreseeing the demise of pagan ways, he betrays Avalon. In an ultimate attempt to unite Christianity and Avalon, so Avalon will survive, he brings the Holy Grail to Camelot. To punish him for this atrocity, Morgaine sets up Nimue to seduce and then betray him, and wants to torture him to death as a traitor. But before the torture begins, Morgaine changes her mind and has him executed swiftly out of mercy, and at the same time, a bolt of lightning incinerates the Holy Oak of Avalon. Morgaine understands that Avalon is doomed.
Raven is a priestess of Avalon who has taken a perpetual vow of silence. Another original character, she sacrifices herself to help Morgaine save the Holy Grail from Patricius.
Accolon is a knight loyal to Avalon, the second son of Uriens, and Morgaine's lover. She wants him to kill King Arthur and so restore the power of Avalon; however, Arthur slays Accolon in direct combat, and Morgaine is disgraced when her role becomes evident.
Avalloch is Uriens' eldest son. He intends to rule North Wales as a Christian king, though he is not such a good Christian himself; upon discovering Morgaine and Accolon's affair, he threatens to expose her if she does not sleep with him as well. Morgaine kills him to preserve her reputation and put Accolon in position to inherit the throne from Uriens.
Uwaine is Uriens' youngest son and a knight loyal to Arthur. He regards Morgaine as his mother.
Nimue is the beautiful daughter of Elaine and Lancelet. As Viviane's granddaughter, she is to be Lady of the Lake when Morgaine dies. She is kept in constant seclusion at Avalon, and Morgaine sees her as the ultimate weapon against Camelot. Nimue seduces Kevin in order to abduct him, but instead falls in love with him and kills herself after she betrays him.
Niniane is Taliesin's daughter, making her Igraine and Morgause's half-sister. She is a priestess who reluctantly becomes Lady of the Lake after Viviane is slain and Morgaine declines to take her place. Niniane is not as powerful or politically astute as Morgaine or Viviane, and painfully aware of her shortcomings as Lady of the Lake. She becomes Mordred's lover, but when he announces his plans to betray Arthur, Niniane turns on him and he kills her in a fit of rage (whether this is accidental or intentional is never specified).
Gawaine is a son of Lot and Morgause and one of Arthur's best Knights of the Round Table. He is known for being very kind, compassionate, and devoted to Arthur.
Gareth is another son of Morgause and Knight of the Round Table. He is similar to Gawaine in both looks and personality, only more fearsome in battle. Lancelet is his childhood idol, although it is Lancelet who accidentally kills him.
Galahad is Lancelet and Elaine's son and Arthur's heir to the throne. Mordred predicts that Galahad will not live to see his own crowning. Prediction proving true, Galahad dies on the quest for the Holy Grail.
Cai is Arthur's foster-brother. After a near fatal accident as a small child, Arthur is sent to live with Cai and his father, Ectorius. Cai and Arthur love each other very much, and after Arthur is crowned, he tells Cai, "God strike me if I ever ask that you, brother, should call me [king]." Cai is described as having a facial scar and a limp, two injuries that he received while protecting Arthur during a Saxon invasion. Cai is made Arthur's knight and chamberlain, and he keeps Arthur's castle for him.
Writing
Marion Zimmer Bradley stated about her book:
Reception
The Mists of Avalon is lauded as one of the most original and emotional retellings of the familiar Arthurian legend. Bradley received much praise for her convincing portrayal of the main protagonists, respectful handling of the Pagan ways of Avalon and for telling a story in which there is neither black and white nor good and evil, but several truths. Isaac Asimov called it "the best retelling of the Arthurian Saga I have ever read", and Jean Auel noted "I loved this book so much I went out and bought it for a friend, and have told many people about it." The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls the book "a convincing revision of the Arthurian cycle," and said that the victory of Christianity over the "sane but dying paganism" of Avalon "ensures eons of repression for women and the vital principles they espouse." It won the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and spent four months on the New York Times best seller list in hardcover. The trade paperback edition of Mists of Avalon has ranked among the top five trade paperbacks on the monthly Locus bestseller lists for almost four years.
TV series adaptation
The Mists of Avalon was adapted for television into a TNT miniseries in 2001, directed by Uli Edel.
Extended series
Bradley, along with Diana L. Paxson, later expanded the book into a series, including The Fall of Atlantis, Ancestors of Avalon, Sword of Avalon, Ravens of Avalon, The Forest House, Lady of Avalon, and Priestess of Avalon. J.S. Morgane's The Spirituality of Avalon discusses the religious aspects of the Avalon series and gives insights into a modern Western understanding of spirituality and its construction in epic fantasy fiction.
Release details
1983, United States, Knopf , Pub Date January 1983, hardcover
1984, United States, Del Rey Fantasy (an imprint of Ballantine Publishing Group) , Pub Date May 1984, trade paperback
See also
Morgan le Fay in modern culture
References
External links
Avalon ~ Avalonbooks.net - Official website of the series
1983 fantasy novels
1983 American novels
Alfred A. Knopf books
American fantasy novels
Avalon Series
Feminist science fiction novels
Modern Arthurian fiction
American novels adapted into television shows
Novels by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Novels set in sub-Roman Britain
Novels set in the 5th century
Parallel literature
Secret histories
Witchcraft in written fiction
Religion in science fiction
Incest in fiction |
421508 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zsef%20Mindszenty | József Mindszenty | József Mindszenty (; 29 March 18926 May 1975) was a Hungarian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Esztergom and leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary from 1945 to 1973. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, for five decades "he personified uncompromising opposition to fascism and communism in Hungary". During World War II, he was imprisoned by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party. After the war, he opposed communism and communist persecution in his country. As a result, he was tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial that generated worldwide condemnation, including a United Nations resolution.
After eight years in prison, Mindszenty was freed in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and granted political asylum by the United States embassy in Budapest. He lived there for the next fifteen years. He was finally allowed to leave the country in 1971, and died in exile in 1975 in Vienna, Austria.
Early life and career
Mindszenty was born on 29 March 1892 in Csehimindszent, Vas County, Austria-Hungary, to József Pehm and Borbála Kovács. His father was a magistrate. He attended St Norbert's Premonstratensian High Grammar School in Szombathely, before entering the Szombathely Diocesan Seminary in 1911.
Mindszenty was ordained a priest by Bishop János Mikes on 12 June 1915, the Feast of the Sacred Heart. In 1917, the first of his books, Motherhood, was published. He was arrested by Mihály Károlyi's socialist government on 9 February 1919 for speaking out against its 'socialist policies', then rearrested by the communist Béla Kun government on 31 July that year.
In 1939, Mindszenty urged his followers to vote against the Arrow Cross Party. In 1940, he published a pamphlet, "The Green Communism", in which he characterised the Hungarian Nyilas Nazi Movement as diabolic and as evil as the communists. Green was the colour of the Nyilas uniform.
In 1941, during a Magyarization campaign amongst Germans living in Hungary, he adopted his new Hungarian name of Mindszenty, part of his home village's name. On 25 March 1944, he was consecrated Bishop of Veszprém. Mindszenty organised a letter to the Nazi authorities urging them not to fight in Western Hungary; he also protested to Miklós Horthy in favour of converted Jews. After Horthy was overthrown, Mindszenty was arrested on 27 November 1944 for his opposition to the Arrow Cross government's plan to quarter soldiers in parts of his official palace. In April 1945, with the Arrow Cross puppet state collapsing, Mindszenty was released from house arrest at a church in Sopron.
Church leader and opposition to communism
Following the fall of the Kingdom of Hungary, Mindszenty was disappointed, as "deep down in his soul he remained a monarchist to the end of his life." On 15 September 1945, Mindszenty was appointed Primate of Hungary and Archbishop of Esztergom, the seat of the head of the Catholic Church in Hungary. On 21 February 1946, Archbishop Mindszenty was elevated to Cardinal-Priest of Santo Stefano Rotondo by Pope Pius XII, who reportedly told him, "Among these thirty-two you will be the first to suffer the martyrdom symbolized by this red color."
To the ruling Hungarian Working People's Party, Mindszenty was regarded as the archetypal figure of "clerical reaction". He continued to use the traditional title of prince-primate () even after the use of noble and royal titles was outlawed by the 1946 puppet parliament. He contacted the US embassy, asking it to "engage in activities which were simply not diplomatically proper or politically feasible", for which he was rebuked by the embassy. In addition to such contacts, the Party accused him of having "aristocratic attitudes" and attacked his demands for compensation following the state seizure of church-owned farmlands during the Party's campaign to abolish private farm ownership. Because the main source of income for the Church was its agricultural lands, confiscations by the communist government left many Church-run institutions destitute.
Cardinal Mindszenty believed and preached that "The Church asks for no secular protection; it seeks shelter under the protection of God alone". For this reason, he fought fiercely against the state policy to emancipate the Hungarian educational system from Church control by seizing parochial schools.
In 1948, religious orders were banned by the government. Soon after, Hungarian Premier Mátyás Rákosi accused the Cardinal and the Catholic Church of being both "the largest landowner in Hungary" and "a reactionary force in our country, supporting the monarchy and later the fascist dictatorship of Admiral Horthy". These, Rákosi claimed, were the only reasons for Mindszenty's opposition to the Party's policy of land confiscation.
On 26 December 1948, Cardinal Mindszenty was arrested and accused of treason, conspiracy, and other offences against the new Hungarian People's Republic. Shortly before his arrest, he wrote a note to the effect that he had not been involved in any conspiracy and that any confession he might make would be the result of duress. While imprisoned, Mindszenty was repeatedly hit with rubber truncheons and subjected to other forms of abuse, until he agreed to confess.
Mindszenty's forced confession included the following "admissions": orchestrating the theft of the Crown of Saint Stephen for the sole purpose of crowning Crown Prince Otto von Habsburg as King of Hungary, scheming to overthrow the Party and reestablish capitalism, planning a third World War, and, once it had been won by the Americans, plotting to assume supreme political power himself.
Almost alone among the Western news media, reporter George Seldes, who had previously been expelled from the Soviet Union and fascist Italy for his reporting, believed the allegations against Cardinal Mindszenty. Seldes spent the rest of his life accusing Mindszenty of being a Nazi collaborator, a Holocaust perpetrator, and a virulent antisemite. In his 1987 memoirs, Seldes wrote, "In 1948 the entire American section of the resident foreign press corps in Hungary implored me to report the facts about Cardinal Mindszenty's collaboration with the Nazis, his part in the deportation of the Jewish population to Hitler's death camps, and also to expose the scores of fraudulent news items coming from outside Hungary, from Vienna, London, Prague, and Rome especially, alleging drugging and torturing of the Cardinal." Seldes was the only one to dispute that Mindszenty was tortured by the Communists. The Pope and the international community at the time believed that Mindszenty had been tortured. Even at his show trial, the prosecution did not make the charge or provide evidence of antisemitism or Nazi collaboration.
On 3 February 1949, Mindszenty's show trial began. The Cardinal admitted to being involved in a Habsburg restorationist organization which planned to form a government after an American invasion, however he denied hoping for the outbreak of war. He said "we prayed for peace". He accepted the charges of smuggling tens of thousands of dollars into Hungary, and admitted his contacts with Otto von Habsburg and American politicians, but did not admit to willful espionage on behalf of foreign powers. In court, Mindszenty said about the charges: "I do not deny one or another part of it, but I do not subscribe to the conclusion". As he followed the trial, a weeping Pope Pius XII told Sister Pascalina Lehnert, "My words have come true and all I can do is pray; I cannot help him any other way." On 8 February, Mindszenty was sentenced to life imprisonment for black marketeering, treason and espionage. The government released a white book, Documents on the Mindszenty Case, containing his alleged confessions and case materials.
On 12 February 1949, Pope Pius XII announced the excommunication of all persons involved in the trial and conviction of Mindszenty. On 20 February 1949, the Pope addressed a series of questions to a crowd which had gathered in St. Peter's Square to protest the Cardinal's show trial, asking:Do you want a Church that remains silent when She should speak; that diminishes the law of God where she is called to proclaim it loudly, wanting to accommodate it to the will of man? Do you want a Church that departs from the unshakable foundations upon which Christ founded Her, taking the easy way of adapting Herself to the opinion of the day; a Church that is a prey to current trends; a Church that does not condemn the suppression of conscience and does not stand up for the just liberty of the people; a Church that locks Herself up within the four walls of Her temple in unseemly sycophancy, forgetting the divine mission received from Christ: 'Go out the crossroads and preach the people'? Beloved sons and daughters! Spiritual heirs of numberless confessors and martyrs! Is this the Church you venerate and love? Would you recognize in such a Church the features of your Mother? Would you be able to imagine a Successor of St. Peter submitting to such demands?According to Sister Pascalina, who witnessed the rally, "In reply to the Holy Father came a single cry like thunder still ringing in our ears: 'No!'"
In Acerrimo moerore, an apostolic letter to the Hungarian Episcopate, the Pope publicly condemned the Cardinal's conviction and described his tortures.
Over seven years later, on 30 October 1956, in the midst of the Hungarian Revolution, Mindszenty was released from prison. He returned to Budapest the next day, and on 2 November, praised the insurgents. The following day, he made a radio broadcast in favour of recent anti-communist developments.
Confinement at the US embassy
On 4 November 1956, when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary to restore the communist government, Cardinal Mindszenty sought Imre Nagy's advice, and was granted political asylum at the United States embassy in Budapest. Mindszenty lived there for the next 15 years, unable to leave the grounds, and did not participate in the papal conclaves of 1958 and 1963.
György Aczél, the communist official in charge of all cultural and religious matters in Hungary, felt increasingly uncomfortable about Mindszenty's plight in the late 1960s when the latter fell seriously ill and rumors spread of his impending death. Yet Aczél failed to convince party leader János Kádár that commuting Mindszenty's sentence would create valuable confusion in the Holy See and allow the state to better control the remaining clergy.
Exile
Eventually, Pope Paul VI offered a compromise: declaring Mindszenty a "victim of history" (instead of communism) and annulling the excommunication imposed on the people involved in his trial. The Hungarian government allowed Mindszenty to leave the country on 28 September 1971.
Beginning on 23 October 1971, he lived in Vienna, Austria, as he took offence at Rome's advice that he should resign from the primacy of the Catholic Church in Hungary in exchange for uncensored publication of his memoirs backed by the Holy See. Although most bishops retire at or near age 75, Mindszenty continually denied rumors of his resignation and was not required by canon law to step down at the time.
In December 1973, at the age of 81, Mindszenty was stripped of his titles by the Pope, who declared the Archdiocese of Esztergom officially vacated, but who refused to fill the seat while Mindszenty was still alive. Mindszenty visited Hungarian emigrants in 1975 in Caracas, Venezuela, and then Bogotá, Colombia. Just after this visit, he traveled back to Europe feeling quite ill. Mindszenty died on 6 May 1975, at the age of 83, in exile in Vienna. In early 1976, the Pope made Bishop László Lékai the primate of Hungary, ending a long struggle with the communist government.
Legacy
In 1991, Mindszenty's remains were repatriated to Esztergom by the newly elected government and buried in the basilica there.
Mindszenty is widely admired in modern-day Hungary for his courage and resolve while opposing the Arrow Cross Party, during Communist imprisonment, and in exile.
The Mindszenty Museum in Esztergom is dedicated to the life of the Cardinal. A commemorative statue of Cardinal Mindszenty stands at St. Ladislaus Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey, US. A monument was donated by the Hungarian community of Greater Cleveland in 1977 and stands at Cardinal Mindszenty Plaza in downtown Cleveland. Mindszenty is remembered in Santiago, Chile with a memorial in Parque Bustamante, the same park where a monument to the martyrs of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution stands.
In June 1974, Cardinal Mindszenty visited the Woodside Priory School in Portola Valley, California. The school was founded by seven Hungarian Benedictine monks, associated with Saint Martin's Archabbey in Pannonhalma, who fled the repression in Hungary following the 1956 revolution. A bronze memorial was placed on the school's campus noting his visit. The Cardinal's visit to the San Francisco Bay Area included Mass in December 1974 at St. Raymond Church in Menlo Park, California; a monument commemorating the service was placed on parish grounds.
Beatification process
The beatification and eventual canonization of Cardinal Mindszenty has been on the Hungarian Catholic Church's agenda ever since communism fell in 1989, and the 2005–2013 pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI was seen by many analysts as an excellent opportunity to achieve both, as the Pope had commented favourably on Mindszenty's calling and legacy.
The cause for the cardinal's beatification opened on 15 June 1993; Mindszenty became titled as a Servant of God after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (CCS) assented to introducing the cause in a decree nihil obstat ("no objection"). The diocesan process (collecting his spiritual writings and collecting witness interrogatories to attest to his reputation for holiness) opened in Esztergom on 19 March 1994 and closed 17 October 1996; the CCS validated the process as having complied with their regulations in Rome on 8 November 1999. In 2012, the Hungarian Bishops' Conference reaffirmed its support for continuing the late cardinal's cause for beatification. Theologians voiced their approval for the cause on 14 June 2018.
Pope Francis declared Mindszenty venerable on 12 February 2019.
In popular culture
Mindszenty's life and battle against the Soviet domination of Hungary and communism were the subject of the 1950 American film Guilty of Treason, partly based on his personal papers and starring Charles Bickford as the cardinal.
The 1955 British thriller The Prisoner is loosely based on Mindszenty's imprisonment, with Alec Guinness playing a fictionalized version of the cardinal.
Mindszenty is reported to have disliked at least one of his film portrayals.
The two-part 1966 episode "Old Man Out" of television's Mission: Impossible was loosely based on Mindszenty. The episode's premise was that a Catholic cardinal, a political prisoner and hero to his people, was slated for execution in an Eastern European prison. The series' protagonists were tasked with smuggling him out of the prison and country before his execution.
See also
Josef Beran
John Fisher
Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei
Josyf Slipyj
Alojzije Stepinac
Stefan Wyszyński
List of Eastern Bloc defectors
List of people granted political asylum
The Black Book of Communism
References
Further reading
Lehnert, Pascalina; Susan Johnson (transl.). His Humble Servant: Sister M. Pascalina Lehnert's Memoirs of Her Years of Service to Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII. Saint Augustine's Press, South Bend. February 2014. .
"His Eminence files": American Embassy, Budapest: from Embassy archives, 15 (1971). ed by Ádám Somorjai, OSB, Budapest, METEM, 2008.
Do Not Forget This Small Honest Nation: Cardinal Mindszenty to 4 US Presidents and State Secretaries 1956-1971 as Conserved in American Archives and Commented by American Diplomats. Ed. by Ádám Somorjai OSB and Tibor Zinner. XLIBRIS, 2013.
Paksy Zoltán: Mindszenty József nézetei és politikai tevékenysége. Korunk, 2014. 4. szám (accessible online at www.multunk.hu).
Somorjai, A.; Zinner, T.: Correspondence of Cardinal József Mindszenty with the Holy See from the American Legation, 1956–71. – EOS Verlag, Sank Ottilien, 2017. .
External links
The Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation
The lead door – a documentary about Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty's life while in exile in the USA Embassy in Budapest
1892 births
1975 deaths
20th-century Hungarian cardinals
Archbishops of Esztergom
Bishops of Veszprém
Burials at Esztergom Basilica
Cardinals created by Pope Pius XII
Hungarian anti-communists
Hungarian-German people
Hungarian defectors
Hungarian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
People of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Hungary
Soviet show trials
Hungarian monarchists
Hungarian exiles
Venerated Catholics by Pope Francis |
421517 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobsonian%20telescope | Dobsonian telescope | A Dobsonian telescope is an altazimuth-mounted Newtonian telescope design popularized by John Dobson in 1965 and credited with vastly increasing the size of telescopes available to amateur astronomers. Dobson's telescopes featured a simplified mechanical design that was easy to manufacture from readily available components to create a large, portable, low-cost telescope. The design is optimized for observing faint, deep-sky objects such as nebulae and galaxies. This type of observation requires a large objective diameter (i.e. light-gathering power) of relatively short focal length and portability for travel to less light-polluted locations.
Dobsonians are intended to be what is commonly called a "light bucket". Operating at low magnification, and therefore the design omits features found in other amateur telescopes such as equatorial tracking. Dobsonians are popular in the amateur telescope making community, where the design was pioneered and continues to evolve. A number of commercial telescope makers also sell telescopes based on this design. The term Dobsonian is currently used for a range of large-aperture Newtonian reflectors that use some of the basic Dobsonian design characteristics, regardless of the materials from which they are constructed.
Origin and design
It is hard to classify the Dobsonian Telescope as a single invention. In the field of amateur telescope making most, if not all, of its design features had been used before. John Dobson, credited as having invented this design in 1965 pointed out that
"for hundreds of years, wars were fought using cannon on 'Dobsonian' mounts".
Dobson identified the characteristic features of the design as lightweight objective mirrors made from porthole glass, and mountings constructed from plywood, Teflon strips and other low-cost materials. Since he built these telescopes as aids in his avocation of instructional sidewalk astronomy, he preferred to call the design a "sidewalk telescope". Dobson combined all these innovations in a design focused towards one goal: building a very large, inexpensive, easy to use, portable telescope, one that could bring deep-sky astronomy to the masses.
Dobson's design innovations
Dobson's design allows a builder with minimal skills to make a very large telescope out of common items. Dobson optimized the design for observation of faint objects such as star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies (what amateur astronomers call deep sky objects). These dim objects require a large objective mirror able to gather a large amount of light. Because "deep sky" observing often requires travel to dark locations away from city lights, the design benefits from being more compact, portable, and rugged than standard large Newtonian telescopes of times past, which typically utilized massive German equatorial mounts. John Dobson's telescopes combined several innovations to meet these criteria, including:
Nontraditional alt-azimuth mount: Instead of a standard mount using axial bearings, Dobson opted for a very stable design that was simple to build, and which had fewer mechanical limitations when used with large and heavy telescopes. He modified the classical fork mount into a free-standing three-piece construction, which holds the telescope steady on seven discrete support points and allows for easy and safe repositioning of a large and heavy telescope.
The classical Dobsonian mount (refer to Fig.1) consists of a flat horizontal "ground board" platform (Fig.1, black) on top of which are attached three of the seven supports (Fig.1, bottom yellow). Upon these three supports rests a box construction called a "rocker box" (Fig.1, dark blue). A loose center-bolt (Fig.1, dark green) keeps the rocker box centered and allows it to pivot above the ground board. On opposing sides of the rocker box, semicircular depressions are cut out from the top edge of each wall (the rocker box is open on the top and on the back). Each depression has a widely spaced pair of supports installed in the cut (Fig.1, top yellow). The telescope optical tube assembly (OTA, Fig.1, light blue) has two large round trunnions (or arc-shaped rails for larger telescopes) secured on the left and right sides (Fig.1, red). Their common axis intersects the center of gravity of the telescope OTA. The trunnions (commonly known as altitude bearings) rest atop the aforementioned four supports in the top cutouts of the rocker box. To raise the telescope (altitude), just lift the tube and the trunnions will slide over the four supports. To move the telescope left or right (azimuth), push or pull the top rim of the OTA (some have a dedicated handle) so that the pivoting rocker box slides over the ground board's three supports.
Classical Dobsonian mount parts are typically made from plywood and other cheap materials which are glued, screwed, or even nailed together. In contrast to other telescope mount types, no precision-machined mechanical parts are required. For smooth sliding motions, small Teflon (PTFE) blocks are used for the seven supports. Their surface sizes can be precisely calculated for the particular OTA weight. To improve the smoothness and steady position-holding, the bottom of the rocker box is typically covered with micro-textured Formica. The altitude trunnions often have a large diameter, and can also be covered with textured material. For larger telescopes, semicircular wood pieces or arc-shaped rails can be used instead of round trunnions.
The use of Teflon over textured material combines with gravity-produced wedging forces to create a unique smooth action, transitioning from rock steady to smooth motion and back. Thus a clamp mechanism is not needed to prevent unintentional motion of the telescope, unlike most other telescope mounts. The steadiness of the classical Dobsonian is unparalleled, as the telescope is actually not rotating on two axes as other mounts but instead statically standing on seven solid blocks (until pushed to a new position). Only the Ball-Scope mount invented later can rival the steady smoothness of a Dobsonian.
Thin mirrors: Instead of costly Pyrex mirror blanks with the standard 1:6 thickness ratios (1 cm thick for every 6 cm in diameter) so they don't flex and sag out of shape under their own weight, Dobson used mirrors made out of glass from surplus ship porthole covers usually with 1:16 thickness ratios. Since the telescope design has an alt-azimuth mount, the mirror only has to be supported in a simple cell with a backing of indoor/outdoor carpet to evenly support the weight of the much thinner mirror.
Construction tubes: Dobson replaced the traditional aluminum or fiberglass telescope tube with the thick compressed paper tubes used in construction to pour concrete columns. "Sonotubes", the leading brand employed by Dobson, are less expensive than commercially available telescope tubes and are available in a wide variety of sizes. For protection against moisture, the tubes were usually painted or coated with plastic. Sonotubes are claimed to be more rugged than aluminum or fiberglass tubes which can dent or shatter from impacts during transport. They have the added advantage of being thermally stable and non-conductive, which minimizes unwanted convection currents in the light path caused by handling of the tube assembly.
A square "mirrorbox": Dobson often used a plywood box for the tube base and mirror housing, into which the Sonotube was inserted. This gave a rigid flat surface to attach the mirror supports, and made it easy to attach the trunnions.
The design of Dobsonian telescopes has evolved over the years (see ), but most commercial or amateur-built "Dobsonian" telescopes follow many or most of the design concepts and features listed above.
Characteristics
The Dobsonian design has the following characteristics:
Altazimuth mount: An equatorial telescope mount with clock drive was left out of the design. Equatorial mounts tend to be massive (less portable), expensive, complicated, and have the characteristics of putting the eyepiece of Newtonian telescopes in very hard to access positions. Altazimuth mounts cut the size, weight and cost of the total telescope and keep the eyepiece in a relatively easy to access position on the side of the telescope. The altazimuth mount design used in Dobsonian designs also adds to simplicity and portability; there is no added mass or need to transport counter weights, drive components, or tripods/pedestals. Setting up for hard tube dobs simply involves placing the mount on the ground, and setting the tube on top of it. The weight of the Dobsonian style altazimuth mount is distributed over large simple bearing surfaces so the telescope can move smoothly under finger pressure with minimal backlash.
The altazimuth mount does have its own limitations. Un-driven altazimuth mounted telescopes need to be "nudged" every few minutes along both axes to compensate for the rotation of the Earth to keep an object in view (as opposed to one axis for un-driven equatorial mounts), an exercise that becomes more difficult with higher magnifications. The altazimuth mount does not allow the use of conventional setting circles to help in aiming the telescope at the coordinates of known objects. They are known for being difficult to point at objects near the zenith, mainly because a large movement of the azimuth axis is needed to move the telescope pointing by even a small amount. Altazimuth mounts are also not well suited for astrophotography.
Large objective diameter compared to mass/cost
Low mass to objective size ratio: The Dobsonian design's structure as measured in volume and weight is relatively minimal for any given objective diameter when compared to other designs.
Low cost to objective size ratio: From a cost perspective, a user typically gets more objective diameter per unit of cost with the Dobsonian design.
Good "Deep Sky" telescope: The Dobsonian design of maximized objective diameter combined with portability makes the design ideal for observing dim star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies (deep sky objects), an activity that requires large objectives and travel to dark sky locations. Since these objects are relatively large, they are observed at low magnifications that do not require a clock-driven mount.
Balance Issues: Designs that have the telescope tube fixed in relationship to its altitude bearings can be put out of balance by the addition or subtraction of equipment such as cameras, finderscopes or even unusually heavy eyepieces. Most Dobsonian telescopes have enough friction in the bearings to resist a moderate amount of imbalance; however, this friction can also make it difficult to position the telescope accurately. To correct such imbalance, counterweights are sometimes hooked or bolted onto the back of the mirror box.
Derivative designs
From its inception, telescope makers have been modifying the Dobsonian design to fit their needs. The original design fit the needs and available supplies of one person—John Dobson. Other people devised variants that fit their own needs, abilities, and access to parts. This has led to significant diversity in "Dobsonian" design.
Collapsible tube assemblies
"Classic" design tube assemblies would require a large van for transport. Designers started coming up with disassembleable or collapsible variants that could be brought to the site with a small SUV, hatchback, or even a sedan. This innovation allowed the amateur astronomy community access to even larger apertures.
The truss tube
Many designs have combined the advantages of a light truss tube and a collapsible design. Collapsible "truss tube" Dobsonians appeared in the amateur telescope making community as early as 1982 and allow the optical tube assembly, the largest component, to be broken down. As the name implies, the "tube" of this design is actually composed of an upper cage assembly, which contains the secondary mirror, and focuser, held in place by several rigid poles over a mirror box which contains the objective mirror. The poles are held in place by quick-disconnecting clamps which allow the entire telescope to be easily broken down into its smaller components, facilitating their transport by vehicle or other means to an observing site. These truss tube designs are sometimes incorrectly called a Serrurier truss, but since the main truss is not built with an opposing mirror cell truss it only performs one function of that design, i.e. keeping the optics parallel.
Modifications to the altazimuth mount (rocker box)
The main attribute of a Dobsonian's mount is that it resembles a "gun carriage" configuration with a "rocker box" consisting of a horizontal trunnion style altitude axis and a broadly supported azimuth axis, both making use of material such as plastic, Formica, and Teflon to achieve smooth operation. Many derivative mount designs have kept this basic form while heavily modifying the materials and configuration.
Compact "rocker box" mounts
Many designs have increased portability by shrinking the altazimuth (rocker box) mount down to a small rotating platform. The altitude trunnion style bearing in these designs becomes a large radius roughly equal to or greater than the radius of the objective mirror, attached to or integrated into the tube assembly which lowers the overall profile of the mount. The advantage of this is that it reduces the total telescope weight, and the telescope's balance becomes less sensitive to changes in the weight loading of telescope tube from the use of heavier eyepieces or the addition of cameras etc.
Overcoming the limitations of the altazimuth mount
Since the late 1990s many innovations in mount design and electronics by amateur telescope makers and commercial manufacturers have allowed users to overcome some of the limitations of the Dobsonian style altazimuth mount.
Digital setting circles: The invention of microprocessor-based digital setting circles has allowed any altazimuth mounted telescope to be fitted or retrofitted with the ability to accurately display the coordinates of the telescope direction. These systems not only give the user a digital read-out for right ascension (RA) and declination (dec.), they also interface with digital devices such as laptop computers, tablet computers, and smartphones using live ephemeris calculating / charting planetarium software to give a current graphical representation of where the telescope is pointing, allowing the user to quickly find an object.
Equatorial platform: The use of equatorial platforms (such as the Poncet Platform) fitted under the altazimuth mount has given users limited equatorial tracking for visual and astrophotographic work. Such platforms can incorporate a clock drive for ease of tracking, and with careful polar alignment sub-arc second precision CCD imaging is entirely possible. Roeser Observatory, Luxembourg (MPC observatory code 163) have contributed hundreds of astrometric measurements to the Minor Planet Center using a home-built 20" dobsonian on an equatorial platform.
Commercial adaptations
The original intent of the Dobsonian design was to provide an affordable, simple, and rugged large-aperture instrument at low cost. These same attributes facilitate their mass production. One of the first companies to offer Dobsonian telescopes commercially was the now defunct company Coulter Optical (now part of Murnaghan Instruments). In the 1980s, they helped popularize the design with "Odyssey" models of various sizes, with tubes made of Sonotube and following Dobson's original concept of simplicity.
By the 1990s, Meade Instruments, Orion Telescopes and other manufacturers began to introduce upgraded Dobsonian models. These imported mass-produced scopes included such niceties as metal tubes and more refined hardware, and are still very affordable.
Since the 1990s, manufactured Dobsonians using the truss tube design have become increasingly popular. The first commercial truss Dobsonian was released into the market by Obsession Telescopes in 1989. Later American manufacturers included StarStructure, Webster Telescopes, AstroSystems, Teeter's Telescopes, Hubble Optics, Waite Research, and New Moon Telescopes. These low-volume builders offer premium objective mirrors, high-end materials and custom craftmanship, as well as optional computer controlled GoTo systems. Some also produce "ultra-light" models that offer greater portability.
In the 21st century, truss Dobsonian models are also mass-produced by Meade, Orion, Explore Scientific and others. Mostly manufactured in China, they offer good quality and value while being considerably less expensive than the premium scopes described above. In 2017, Sky-Watcher introduced its line of large Stargate models.
Solid tube commercial Dobsonians typically have a maximum aperture of 12 inches (305 mm) due to the size of the tube. Truss Dobsonians of 12 to 18 inches (305 to 457 mm) are the most popular sizes, as they offer substantial aperture yet can still be easily set up by one person. Several manufacturers offer models of 24 inch (610 mm) aperture and greater. Truss Dobsonians are the largest telescopes commercially available today. A massive 36 inch (914 mm) aperture Hybrid model from New Moon Telescopes was displayed at the 2018 Northeast Astronomy Forum. In 2019, a huge 50 inch (1270 mm) aperture folded Newtonian from Canadian based Optiques Fullum was installed in New Jersey.
The Dobsonian's effect on amateur astronomy
The Dobsonian design is considered revolutionary due to the sheer size of telescopes it made available to amateur astronomers. The inherent simplicity and large aperture of the design began to attract interest through the 1970s since it offered the advantage of inexpensive large instruments that could be carried to dark sky locations and star parties in the back of a small car and set up in minutes.
The result has been a proliferation of larger telescopes which would have been expensive to build or buy, and unwieldy to operate, using "traditional" construction methods. Whereas an 8 inch Newtonian telescope would have been considered large in the 1970s, today 16 inch systems are common, and huge 32 inch systems not all that rare.
In combination with other improvements in observing equipment, such as narrow-pass optical filters, improved eyepieces, and digital visible and infrared photography, the large apertures of the Dobsonian have dramatically increased the number of objects observed as well as the amount of detail in each object observed. Whereas the amateur astronomer of the 1970s and 1980s typically did not explore much beyond the Messier and brighter NGC objects, thanks in part to Dobsonians, modern amateur astronomers routinely observe dim objects listed in obscure catalogues, such as the IC, Abell, Kohoutek, Minkowski, and others once considered reference works only for professional astronomers.
When mounted on an equatorial platform the difficulties using a Dobsonian for short-exposure (≲ 1 hr) astrophotography are obviated. This has opened up the field of high precision asteroid astrometry (and discovery) to the amateur wishing to contribute minor planet positions to the Minor Planet Center. It also makes possible searches for new, faint objects such as novae / supernovae in local galaxies, and comets (for reports to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams).
See also
List of telescope types
Notes
References
Moser, Don (November 1, 2005) 35 Who Made a Difference: John Dobson – Smithsonianmag.com
Moser, Don (April 1989) "A Salesman for the Heavens Wants to Rope You In", Smithsonian Magazine.
External links
Sidewalk Astronomers Organization
San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers' telescope building page
Complete Plans for Building a Dobsonian Telescope
The Largest Portable Dobsonian Telescope in the World (42 inch - 107 cm)
World's Largest Backyard Telescope
Telescope types
nl:Montering (telescoop)#Dobsonmontering |
421553 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll%20Gardens%2C%20Brooklyn | Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn | Carroll Gardens is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Taking up around 40 city blocks, it is bounded by Degraw and Warren Streets (north), Hoyt and Smith Streets (east), Ninth Street or the Gowanus Expressway (south), and Interstate 278, the Gowanus and Brooklyn–Queens Expressways (west). The neighborhoods that surround it are Cobble Hill to the northwest, Boerum Hill to the northeast, Gowanus to the east, Red Hook to the south and southwest, and the Columbia Street Waterfront District to the west.
Originally considered to be part of the area once known as South Brooklyn (or, more specifically, Red Hook), the area started to have its own identity in the 1960s. The neighborhood was named after Charles Carroll, the only Roman Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, and whose name was already attached to Carroll Street and Carroll Park. The name also reflects the large front gardens of brownstones in the Carroll Gardens Historic District and elsewhere in the neighborhood. Despite having an Irish surname, in recent times it has been known as an Italian American neighborhood.
Carroll Gardens is part of Brooklyn Community District 6, and its primary ZIP Code is 11231. It is patrolled by the 76th Precinct of the New York City Police Department. and is served by the New York City Fire Department's Engine Company 239, Engine Co. 279/Ladder Co. 131 and Engine Company 202/Ladder Company 101. Politically, Carroll Gardens is represented by the New York City Council's 39th District.
History
19th century
Carroll Gardens was settled in the 19th century by immigrants from Ireland, followed in the middle of the century by Norwegian immigrants, who founded two churches, the Norwegian Seaman's Church (formerly the Westminster Presbyterian Church), now apartments, and the Norwegian Methodist Episcopal Church (formerly the Carroll Park Methodist Episcopal Church, no longer extant).
The development of the South Brooklyn area, including Carroll Gardens, was aided by the foundation in 1846 by philanthropists Henry Pierrepont and Jacob E. Leroy of the Hamilton Avenue Ferry. Its purpose was to improve transportation to the newly created Green-Wood Cemetery, but horse car service, and later trolley lines, connecting to the ferry ran through Carroll Gardens, enabling businessmen who lived there to commute more easily to work in Manhattan.
In the late 1840s, Carroll Park, Brooklyn's third-oldest, a block-long area of playgrounds, walkways, and sitting areas between Court, Smith, Carroll, and President Streets was built. Originally a private garden, it was purchased by the city in 1853, and was named after Charles Carroll in honor of his Maryland regiment, which had helped to defend the area during the Battle of Long Island in the American Revolutionary War.
In 1846, surveyor Richard Butt planned gardens in front of the brownstone houses in the oldest section of the neighborhood when he developed it. The homes are set farther back from the street than is common in Brooklyn, and the large gardens became an iconic depiction of the neighborhood. The same year, a law was passed requiring that all buildings between Henry Street and Smith Street have between the building and the street for "courtyards". The large gardens can be seen from First to Fourth Place between Henry and Smith Streets, as well as on President, Carroll, and Second Streets between Smith and Hoyt Streets.
Further development of the Carroll Gardens was aided by the draining in the late 1860s of the swampland which surrounded Gowanus Creek through the deepening and dredging of the Creek to create the Gowanus Canal. This provoked land speculation and a building boom throughout the area. It was during this period, from the late 1860s to the early 1880s, that the area which is now the Carroll Gardens Historic District began to be developed.
20th century
Italian immigrants began coming to the neighborhood in the late 19th century – dock workers and workers in the Brooklyn Navy Yard – continuing through the 1950s, which led to much of the Irish population of the area leaving beginning in the 1920s. The rise of the Italian population provoked questions about the role of the Mafia in the neighborhood. One theory has it that Carroll Gardens, which lies between a territory traditionally controlled by the Gambino crime family and one controlled by the Colombo family, is considered to be neutral territory, and has been, for the most part, left alone.
Carroll Gardens had long been considered to be part of either the larger area referred to as South Brooklyn, or the neighborhood known as Red Hook. That neighborhood had an informal division in the 1930s and 1940s along Hamilton Avenue, with kids from south of the avenue, mostly of Italian descent, calling themselves "Hookers" or "Hookies" after Red Hook, and kids north of the street, mostly Irish, in what would now be Carroll Gardens called "Creekers" or "Creekies" after the now-drained Gowanus Creek. Violence between the two groups was common. The division between the neighborhoods became even stronger beginning in the late 1940s when Robert Moses built the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Gowanus Expressway, which started the process of the Carroll Gardens area taking on a separate and distinct character of its own; the neighborhood's name came from the Carroll Gardens Association, which had been created to advocate for neighborhood improvements.
In the 1960s, young middle-class professionals began to be attracted to the Carroll Garden area due to its convenience to Manhattan, where many of them worked, and its growing reputation as a safe and quiet place to live. This began the gentrification of the neighborhood, and a response from older residents, who did not appreciate these "hippie" newcomers who had no ties to the community. Regardless, the neighborhood gradually received its own name at that time, and the Carroll Gardens Association was formed in 1964. One result was that the decades-long control of the area by a political machine was ended.
Today, Carroll Gardens is predominantly upper middle-class, while Red Hook, which had retained its working-class, waterfront ambiance, has only recently begun to feel the effects of gentrification. However, the two neighborhoods have historically both been working-class and a mix of working-class Italian-American, African-American, and Hispanic-American residents, as well as more recent Arab-American immigrant families. As late as the 1990s, several highly publicized incidents of violence underscored the tension between working-class African-Americans from Red Hook and working-class Italian-American residents of Carroll Gardens.
21st century
Carroll Gardens is largely known as an Italian-American neighborhood. Though still visible in local business and culture, the Italian segment of the community has decreased in recent years from 52 percent of the population in 1980 to 22 percent in 2012. Still, despite the decline in the Italian segment of the population and the effects of gentrification, the neighborhood remains a strongly Italian one. Italians in the neighborhood often play bocce games, speak several dialects of Italian, and operate many Italian restaurants and shops, as well as join fraternal and benevolent associations attached to specific towns in Italy. The Roman Catholicism of the Italian population is still evident in the many shrines, especially to the Virgin Mary, which can be seen in front gardens in the neighborhood, and the 70-year tradition of an Our Lady of Sorrows procession celebrating Good Friday continues. Adult children who had moved away from Carroll Gardens have started returning to the neighborhood to raise their children.
The area has recently seen an increase in upper middle-class and wealthy French people, to the extent that it has sometimes been referred to as "Little France" or "Little Paris" by the media in recent times due to the many French citizens who have taken up residence there over the past few years. A Catholic mass in French is said every Sunday at the St. Agnes Church in Carroll Gardens. This initiative of the diocese of Brooklyn occurred after the neighboring Archdiocese of New York, incurred the wrath of French worshipers in Manhattan by deciding to close the French national parish of St. Vincent de Paul Church. Carroll Gardens has seen some French immigration since the late 1990s, and Bastille Day celebrations are held on July 14 of each year. International School of Brooklyn, a Nursery-8th grade independent school, offers a French and Spanish language immersion program. One of the public schools in Carroll Gardens, The Carroll School (P.S. 58), also has one of the area's French dual-language programs, which was one of the first such French programs at a public school in the city. French expatriates operate several restaurants and shops in the neighborhood, including La Cigogne, Café Luluc, Provence en boite, French Louie, Chez Moi, and Bar Tabac.
Carroll Gardens Historic District
The development of what is now the Carroll Gardens Historic District began in the 1870s, due in part to its proximity to Carroll Park. The district was created by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1973. It includes houses located in a rough rectangle bounded by Carroll, President, Smith, and Hoyt Streets, as well as the western ends of the two blocks between President Street and First Street. The district includes some of the finest examples of brownstones with large front gardens.
Points of interest
The John Rankin House, 440 Clinton Street, built c.1840 in the Greek Revival style. When Rankin, a wealthy merchant, built this house, which was one of the largest of the 1840s in Brooklyn, the area was still primarily farmland, and the house had a view of Upper New York Bay. The house was designated a New York City landmark in 1970 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
The South Congregational Church Complex included the Early Romanesque Revival Church and Chapel at 358-366 Court Street, built in 1851 (chapel) and 1857 (church); the neo-Gothic Rectory at 255 President Street, built in 1893 and designed by Woodruff Leeming; and the Ladies Parlor at 257 President Street, built in 1889 and designed by F. Carles Merry in the Romanesque Revival style. At one time the chapel became the Calvary Baptist Church of Red Hook. All of the buildings have been converted to condominium apartments. The complex in a New York City landmark, designated in 1982.
St. Paul's Episcopal Church at 199 Carroll Street. The congregation was founded in 1849, during the heyday of Brooklyn's industrialization, and the church was built in 1867–84 and was designed by the firm Richard Upjohn & Son in the Victorian Gothic style.
The Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and St. Stephen's Church at Summit and Hicks Streets, was built c.1860 as St. Stephen's Church; the parish's name changed when it merged with another which lost its church in 1941 due to the building of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. This church was designed by Patrick Charles Keely in the Gothic Revival style.
The Westminster Presbyterian Church at 450 Clinton Avenue at First Place was built c.1865 in the Romanesque Revival style. It became Den Norske Sjomannskirke (the Norwegian Seaman's Church), founded by Norwegian immigrants; it was once visited by the King of Norway during an official visit to the United States. The church building has now been converted to condominium apartments. However, there is a Norwegian Seamen's Church located in Manhattan.
St. Mary's Star of the Sea Church, located at 471 Court Street between Luquer and Nelson Streets was built in 1853 and was designed by Patrick Charles Keely. Originally constructed to serve as a cathedral, the church was built with Italian and European stones and marble. The church was where Al Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin. A rectory and a girls' school – now the International School of Brooklyn – are also part of the church complex.
Dennett Place is a short mews of residences running between Luquer and Nelson Streets in the block between Court and Smith Streets.
Demographics
Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of the Carroll Gardens/Columbia Street/Red Hook neighborhood tabulation area was 38,353, a change of 26 (0.1%) from the 38,327 counted in 2000. Covering an area of , the neighborhood had a population density of .
The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 60.9% (23,342) White, 11.9% (4,573) African American, 0.2% (61) Native American, 4.5% (1,728) Asian, 0% (13) Pacific Islander, 0.4% (143) from other races, and 2.4% (912) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 19.8% (7,581) of the population.
The entirety of Community Board 6, which covers areas around Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, had 109,351 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 81.4 years. This is slightly higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are middle-aged adults and youth: 18% are between the ages of 0–17, 46% between 25 and 44, and 20% between 45 and 64. The ratio of college-aged and elderly residents was lower, at 5% and 10% respectively.
As of 2016, the median household income in Community Board 6 was $134,804. In 2018, an estimated 10% of Park Slope and Carroll Gardens residents lived in poverty, compared to 21% in all of Brooklyn and 20% in all of New York City. Less than one in fifteen residents (6%) were unemployed, compared to 9% in the rest of both Brooklyn and New York City. Rent burden, or the percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 37% in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, lower than the citywide and boroughwide rates of 52% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation, , Park Slope and Carroll Gardens is considered to be high-income and not gentrifying.
Police and crime
Carroll Gardens is patrolled by the 76th Precinct of the NYPD, located at 191 Union Street. The 76th Precinct ranked 37th safest out of 69 patrol areas for per-capita crime in 2010. , with a non-fatal assault rate of 30 per 100,000 people, Park Slope and Carroll Gardens' rate of violent crimes per capita is less than that of the city as a whole. The incarceration rate of 294 per 100,000 people is lower than that of the city as a whole.
The 76th Precinct has a lower crime rate than in the 1990s, with crimes across all categories having decreased by 83.1% between 1990 and 2018. The precinct reported 4 murders, 9 rapes, 53 robberies, 91 felony assaults, 65 burglaries, 210 grand larcenies, and 28 grand larcenies auto in 2018.
Fire safety
The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) operates three fire stations serving Carroll Gardens:
Engine Co. 202/Ladder Co. 101 – 31 Richards Street
Engine Co. 279/Ladder Co. 131 – 252 Lorraine Street
Engine Co. 239 – 395 4th Avenue
Health
Preterm and teenage births are less common in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens than in other places citywide. In Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, there were 27 preterm births per 1,000 live births (compared to 87 per 1,000 citywide), and 7.9 births to teenage mothers per 1,000 live births (compared to 19.3 per 1,000 citywide). Park Slope and Carroll Gardens has a relatively high population of residents who are uninsured, or who receive healthcare through Medicaid. In 2018, this population of uninsured residents was estimated to be 22%, which is higher than the citywide rate of 12%.
The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens is , higher than the citywide and boroughwide averages. Fifteen percent of Park Slope and Carroll Gardens residents are smokers, which is slightly higher than the city average of 14% of residents being smokers. In Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, 15% of residents are obese, 6% are diabetic, and 22% have high blood pressure—compared to the citywide averages of 24%, 11%, and 28% respectively. In addition, 9% of children are obese, compared to the citywide average of 20%.
Ninety-four percent of residents eat some fruits and vegetables every day, which is higher than the city's average of 87%. In 2018, 88% of residents described their health as "good", "very good", or "excellent", greater than the city's average of 78%. For every supermarket in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, there are 12 bodegas.
Education
Park Slope and Carroll Gardens generally have a much higher ratio of college-educated residents than the rest of the city . The majority (74%) of residents age 25 and older have a college education or higher, while 9% have less than a high school education and 17% are high school graduates or have some college education. By contrast, 40% of Brooklynites and 38% of city residents have a college education or higher. The percentage of Park Slope and Carroll Gardens students excelling in reading and math has been increasing, with reading achievement rising from 41 percent in 2000 to 53 percent in 2011, and math achievement rising from 35 percent to 64 percent within the same time period.
Park Slope and Carroll Gardens's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is lower than the rest of New York City. In Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, 11% of elementary school students missed twenty or more days per school year, compared to the citywide average of 20% of students. Additionally, 77% of high school students in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens graduate on time, higher than the citywide average of 75% of students.
Schools
The New York City Department of Education operates a number of public schools in the neighborhood: Patrick F. Daly (P.S. 15), John M. Harrigan (P.S. 29), The Carroll School (P.S. 58), Samuel Mills Sprole (P.S. 32), the Brooklyn New School (P.S. 146), Brooklyn School of Collaborative Studies (M.S. 448), and the School for Innovation (M.S. 442). The Carroll School (P.S. 58) is known for its dual-language immersion program, which offers a French immersion experience in both English and French for a portion of the students at the school. This program, which began in 2007, has encouraged a growing French-speaking population in the neighborhood.
Also in the area are the New Dawn Charter High School, International School of Brooklyn, Hannah Senesh Community Day School, the Mary McDowell Friends Middle School, and St. Mary's School.
Library
The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL)'s Carroll Gardens branch is located at 396 Clinton Street near Union Street. The library, originally the Carroll Park branch, opened in 1901 in a rented facility. The library moved to its current facility, a Carnegie library designed by William B. Tubby, in 1905. After extensive renovations, the library received its current name in response to a request from the community.
Sports
Several 19th-century baseball fields in the community, collectively referred to as Carroll Park, were home fields for several clubs from the early days of baseball, including Excelsior of Brooklyn before they moved to their Red Hook grounds.
Transportation
The New York City Subway's Carroll Street and Smith–Ninth Streets stations service the . Bus service through the neighborhood is available from the on 9th Street and the on Court and Smith Streets.
Notable residents
Nicole Beland, former Men's Health Girl Next Door
Mike Birbiglia, (born 1978), comedian, actor, director, producer and writer.
Stanley Bosworth (1927–2011), founding headmaster of Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, which he led from 1965 to 2004.
Salvatore Cassano (born 1945), 32nd New York City Fire Commissioner
Stanley Crouch (1945–2020), poet, music and cultural critic, syndicated columnist, novelist, and biographer
Brendan J. Dugan (1947–2016), 18th President of St. Francis College
Eileen C. Dugan (1945–1996), politician who served eight terms in the New York State Assembly.
Michelle Goldberg (born 1975), journalist and author.
Jemima Kirke (born 1985), English-American artist and actress best known for her role as Jessa Johansson on the television series Girls.
Solange Knowles (born 1986), singer, songwriter.
Stacy London (born 1969), fashion stylist and media personality
Ari Melber (born 1980), MSNBC host of The Beat with Ari Melber
Jim Neu (1943–2010), playwright.
Oz Pearlman (born 1982), mentalist and magician.
Joe Sarno (1921–2010), sexploitation film pioneer
Jenny Slate (born 1982), comedian, actress, voice actress and author.
Daniel Squadron (born 1979), former member of the New York Senate for the 26th district
George Weber (1961–2009), radio personality
In popular culture
In the 1987 film Moonstruck, the characters played by Cher and Nicolas Cage met at the now closed Cammareri Brothers Bakery on Henry Street in Carroll Gardens.
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
.
External links
"Carroll Gardens Historic District"
"Catholic Shrines of Carroll Gardens" (photo essay)
French-American culture in New York City
Italian-American culture in New York City
Neighborhoods in Brooklyn
Little Italys in the United States |
421624 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel%20Roberts%20Poinsett | Joel Roberts Poinsett | Joel Roberts Poinsett (March 2, 1779December 12, 1851) was an American physician, diplomat and botanist. He was the first U.S. agent in South America, a member of the South Carolina legislature and the United States House of Representatives, the first United States Minister to Mexico, a Unionist leader in South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis, Secretary of War under Martin Van Buren, and a co-founder of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science and the Useful Arts (a predecessor of the Smithsonian Institution).
Early life
Joel Roberts Poinsett was born in 1779 in Charleston, South Carolina, to a wealthy physician, Elisha Poinsett, and his wife Katherine Ann Roberts. He was educated in Connecticut and University of Edinburgh, gaining expertise in languages, the law, and military affairs.
Touring in Europe
In 1800 Poinsett returned to Charleston hoping to pursue a military career. His father did not want his son to be a soldier. Hoping to entice his son to settle into the Charleston aristocracy, Poinsett had his son study law under Henry William DeSaussure, a prominent lawyer of Charleston. Poinsett was not interested in becoming a lawyer, and convinced his parents to allow him to go on an extended tour of Europe in 1801. DeSaussure sent with him a list of law books including Blackstone's Commentaries and Burn's Ecclesiastical Law, just in case young Poinsett changed his mind regarding the practice of law.
Beginning in 1801, Poinsett traveled the European continent. In the spring of 1802, Poinsett left France for Italy traveling through the Alps and Switzerland. He visited the cities of Naples and hiked up Mount Etna on the island of Sicily. In the spring of 1803 he arrived in Switzerland and stayed at the home of Jacques Necker and his daughter, Madame de Stael. Necker, French Finance Minister from 1776 to 1781 under Louis XVI, had been driven into exile by Napoleon I.
On one occasion, Robert Livingston, the United States minister to France, was invited for a visit while he was touring Savoy, France, and Switzerland. Poinsett was compelled to assume the role of interpreter between the deaf Livingston and the aged Necker, whose lack of teeth made his speech almost incomprehensible. Fortunately, Madame de Stael tactfully assumed the duty of translation for her elderly father.
In October 1803, Poinsett left Switzerland for Vienna, Austria, and from there journeyed to Munich. In December he received word that his father was dead, and that his sister, Susan, was seriously ill. He immediately secured passage back to Charleston. Poinsett arrived in Charleston early in 1804, months after his father had been laid to rest. Hoping to save his sister's life, Poinsett took her on a voyage to New York, remembering how his earlier voyage to Lisbon had intensified his recovery. Yet, upon arriving in New York City, Susan Poinsett died. As the sole remaining heir, Poinsett inherited a small fortune in town houses and lots, plantations, bank stock, and "English funds." The entire Poinsett estate was valued at a hundred thousand dollars or more.
Travel in Russia
Poinsett arrived in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg in November 1806. Levett Harris, consul of the United States at St. Petersburg, and the highest American official in the country, hoped to introduce Poinsett at court to Czar Alexander. Learning that Poinsett was from South Carolina, the Empress asked him if he would inspect the cotton factories under her patronage. Poinsett and Consul Harris traveled by sleigh to Cronstadt to see the factories. Poinsett made some suggestions on improvement, which the Dowager Empress accepted. Poinsett did not believe the cotton industry could be successful in Russia because of the necessity of employing serfs who received no compensation and therefore could have no interest in its prosperity. Furthermore, he believed that the institution of serfdom made it difficult for Russia to have a merchant marine or become industrialized.
In January 1807, Czar Alexander and Poinsett dined at the Palace. Czar Alexander attempted to entice Poinsett into the Russian civil or military service. Poinsett was hesitant, which prompted Alexander to advise him to "see the Empire, acquire the language, study the people", and then decide. Always interested in travel, Poinsett accepted the invitation and left St. Petersburg in March 1807 on a journey through southern Russia. He was accompanied by his English friend Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston and eight others.
With letters recommending them to the special care of all Russian officials, Poinsett and Royston made their way to Moscow. They were among the last westerners to see Moscow before its burning in October 1812 by Napoleon's forces. From Moscow they traveled to the Volga River, and then by boat to Astrakhan, situated at the mouth of the river. Poinsett's company now entered the Caucasus, containing a very diverse population, and only recently acquired by Russia through conquests by Czars Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. Because of ethnic conflict, the area was extremely dangerous. They were provided with a Cossack escort as they traveled between Tarki and Derbent, but when a Tartar dignitary claimed that this would only provoke danger, the escort was bypassed for the security of the Tartar chiefs. This new security increased the numbers in Poinsett's company, which they believed made it less vulnerable to attack as it passed out of Russia proper. Thus, they were joined by a Persian merchant, who was transporting young girls he had acquired in Circassia to Baku and harems in Turkey. With a strong Persian and Kopak guard, the party left Derbent and entered the realm of the Khan of Kuban.
While traveling through the Khanate, a tribal chief stole some of the horses in Poinsett's party. Poinsett boldly decided to go out of his way to the court of the Khan in the town of Kuban to demand their return. As there were normally never any foreigners in this place, the Khan was surprised. Of course, he had never heard of the United States, and Poinsett did the best he could to answer all the questions the Khan had. In order to convey the greatness of the U.S., Poinsett spoke at length on its geography. The Khan referred to President Thomas Jefferson as the Shah of America. Finally, Poinsett stated that the theft of his horses would reflect badly on the fair name of the Khanate. The Khan was impressed and told Poinsett that the head of the guilty chief was his for the asking, yet since the thief had made it possible for him to accept such a distinguished visitor, perhaps a pardon might be in order.
Poinsett's company traveled to Baku on the Caspian Sea. He noted that because of the petroleum pits in the region, it had long been a spot of pilgrimage for fire-worshipers. He became one of the earliest U.S. travelers to the Middle East, where, in 1806, the Persian khan showed him a pool of petroleum, which he speculated might someday be used for fuel.
Attracted by the military movements in the Caucasus Mountains, Poinsett visited Erivan, which was then besieged by the Russian Army. After a time with the troops, Poinsett and company journeyed through the mountains of Armenia to the Black Sea. Avoiding Constantinople because of conflict between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, the party proceeded to the Crimea, then through Ukraine, reaching Moscow late in 1807. The trip had been hazardous and Poinsett's health was much impaired. Furthermore, of the nine who had set out on the journey the previous March, Poinsett and two others were the only survivors.
Upon his return to Moscow, Czar Alexander discussed the details of Poinsett's trip with him and offered him a position as colonel in the Russian Army. However, news had reached Russia of the attack of the Chesapeake affair, and war between the United States and Great Britain seemed certain. Poinsett eagerly sought to return to his homeland.
Before leaving Russia, Poinsett met one last time with Czar Alexander. The Czar declared that Russia and the United States should maintain friendly relations. Poinsett again met with Foreign Minister Count Romanzoff where the Russian disclosed to Poinsett that the Czar ardently desired to have a minister from the United States at the Russian Court.
Chile and Argentina
He served as a "special agent" to two South American countries from 1810 to 1814, Chile and Argentina. President James Madison appointed him in 1809 as Consul in General. Poinsett was to investigate the prospects of the revolutionists, in their struggle for independence from Spain. On December 29, 1811, he reached Santiago. The Larrain and Carrera families were jockeying for power in Chile. By the time Poinsett arrived, the Carreras gained control under their leader, José Miguel Carrera. Carrera's government was split on how to receive Poinsett. The Tribunal del Consulado, the organization with jurisdiction over commercial matters opposed his reception on the grounds that his nomination had not been confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Moreover, many of the members of this group were royalists, hoping for closer relations with Spain or Britain. Nevertheless, Poinsett received recognition as a majority wanted to establish trade relations with the U.S.
The official reception finally occurred on February 24, 1812. Poinsett was the first accredited agent of a foreign government to reach Chile. Poinsett's main adversary in Chile was the junta of Peru. The Colonial Viceroy of Peru resented the Chileans' disregard for Spanish authority. He declared the laws of the new Chilean government relative to free commerce null and void and sent privateers to enforce the old colonial system. Seizure of ships and confiscation of cargoes followed, to the dismay of foreign traders, especially Americans. Poinsett learned of the seizure of an American whaler searching for supplies from an intercepted letter from the governor of San Carlos de Chiloe to the viceroy of Lima. Furthermore, he received intelligence that ten other American vessels were seized at Talcahuano in the Bay of Concepción. With little guidance from the Madison administration, Poinsett decided that something had to be done to halt violations of American neutral rights.
Poinsett urged Chile to close its ports to Peru, but the authorities in Santiago did not feel they were strong enough to take such a step. Instead they urged Poinsett to aid them in obtaining arms and supplies from the United States. Although Poinsett furnished the names of certain dealers, many of them were already too involved with the conflict between the U.S. and Britain to give any attention to the Chileans. During this time Poinsett also urged the Chileans to create a national constitution. A commission consisting of Camilo Henríquez and six others was named for the purpose of drawing up a constitution. The first meeting of the group was held at Poinsett's residence on July 11, 1812.
The seizure of American ships by royalist Peru continued. Poinsett's commission stated that he was to protect all American property and provide for American citizens. After a consultation with Carrera, Poinsett accepted a commission into the Chilean army to fight against the Spanish Royalists based in Peru. Poinsett was later given the rank of general in Carrera's army. He led a charge at the head of the Chilean cavalry in the Battle of San Carlos and secured a victory for Chile. From there, he went with a battery of flying artillery to the Bay of Concepción, where ten American vessels had been seized. He arrived at dark near the seaport of Talcahuano, and began firing on the town. At dawn he sent an emissary to demand the surrender of the bay to the Junta of Chile. The Peruvian royalists surrendered on May 29, 1813.
In early September 1813, the United States Frigate Essex arrived in Chilean waters, forcibly seizing the British whalers in the area. When Commodore David Porter of the U.S.S. Essex arrived in Santiago, Poinsett received the first authoritative news of the War of 1812. He now desired more than ever to return to his home. However, this could not happen until Commodore Porter completed his cruise of the Pacific. Finally, as the Essex set out with Poinsett aboard, the British frigates HMS Phoebe and HMS Cherub were spotted in the port of Valparaiso. Commodore Porter returned to Santiago to utilize the guns of the fort there. After waiting six weeks, Porter decided to launch a desperate breakout but was easily defeated by Captain James Hillyar of the Phoebe. The British decided to send their American prisoners of war back to the United States in a cartel. Poinsett was forced to stay behind in Chile.
When Poinsett returned to Buenos Aires, he found a Junta that was very well established. He managed to negotiate a commercial agreement with the Junta by which American articles of general consumption were admitted free of duty. As American shipping had been driven from the South Atlantic, it took some time to find passage back to the United States. Poinsett finally secured passage aboard a vessel going to Bahia, a state in the northeastern part of Brazil. From there he transferred to another ship bound for the Madeira Islands, located 535 miles from mainland Europe. Poinsett finally reached Charleston on May 28, 1815.
Return to the U.S.
Returning to Charleston in 1815, Poinsett spent the first few months putting his personal affairs in order. From then until 1825 Poinsett stayed in South Carolina seeking to build a reputation in his home state, and hold office. Yet, he came to be respected as an authority on Latin American affairs. In 1816 Poinsett received a letter from his old friend General Jose Miguel Carrera.
Since Poinsett's departure, the Chilean Royalists had consolidated their hold on Chile, and after spending a year in exile in the provinces of the Río de la Plata, Carrera came to the United States in January 1816 to stimulate interest for a revolution in Chile. Poinsett wrote Carrera back stating that he intended to urge the U.S. government to develop decisive policy regarding the Spanish colonies. President James Madison received General Carrera warmly, but never offered him any official encouragement because he worried that seriously entertaining Carrera might jeopardize gaining Florida that was under Spanish rule. Carrera's only hope of help came from his former comrade.
In July 1816, Poinsett traveled to New York to meet Carrera. While there, Poinsett attempted to interest John Jacob Astor, the wealthy owner of the American Fur Company, in supplying Carrera's Chilean revolutionists with weapons; however, Astor declined to get involved. In August 1816, Poinsett was able to arrange some conferences in Philadelphia between the Chilean leader and some of Napoleon's former officers. Among them were Marshal de Grouchy who had commanded Napoleon's body guards during the Russian Campaign. Poinsett also arranged a meeting between Carrera and General Bertrand Count Clausel. Clausel had distinguished himself in the Napoleonic Wars and was given the distinction of Peer of France by Napoleon in 1815. Although Carrera's movement never benefited from the experience of these French officers, Poinsett did succeed in obtaining contracts with the firm D'Arcy and Didier of Philadelphia to supply arms for the expedition which Carrera was planning.
On August 29, 1816, Poinsett, along with four free men and one enslaved man from Charleston, set out from Philadelphia on a tour of the western United States. They made stops in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, before stopping in Lexington, Kentucky. While in Lexington, the group stayed with Congressman Henry Clay. It is possible that in relating his experiences in Chile, Poinsett may have made quite an impression on Clay, who would distinguish himself as the biggest American supporter for Spanish American independence in the next few years. From Lexington, the travelers made their way to Louisville, and then on to Nashville, Tennessee. While in Nashville, Poinsett and his companions had breakfast with Andrew Jackson. Poinsett, after traversing more than two thousand miles, finally returned to Charleston in early November 1816.
Political career
Poinsett was aware that his friends had nominated him to represent Charleston, South Carolina, in the state legislature. In Greenville on his way back home, he learned that he had won the nomination and had a seat in the State House of Representatives. As he was beginning his first term in April 1817, the rumored position of American envoy to South America became reality. On April 25, 1817, acting Secretary of State Robert Rush offered Poinsett the position of special commissioner to South America stating, "No one has better qualifications for this trust than yourself." Rush also added that he would be personally gratified by Poinsett's acceptance.
Nevertheless, Poinsett declined the honor. In May, Poinsett explained to President James Monroe that he had recently accepted a seat in the legislature of South Carolina and could not resign it "without some more important motive than this commission presents." Poinsett perceived that the mission would not lead to any substantial decision for recognition and was unwilling to give up his seat in the House. In the same letter, Poinsett offered his knowledge of South America to the service of whomever the Monroe administration appointed.
Poinsett's political values mirrored those of others at the time who considered themselves Jeffersonian Republicans. One of the most important measures supported by Jeffersonian Republicans following the War of 1812 was that of federally funded internal improvements. As a member of the state legislature, this was one of Poinsett's passions. After being re-elected to the South Carolina House in 1818, he became a member of the Committee on Internal Improvements and Waterways.
Poinsett also served on the South Carolina Board of Public Works as president. One of the main plans of this board was to link the interior of the state with the seaboard. Another important project was the construction of a highway from Charleston through Columbia, to the northwestern border of South Carolina. It was designed to promote interstate commerce as well as to draw commerce from eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina to Charleston. Poinsett, a seasoned traveler, knew better than anyone the importance of good roadways. Through his journeys in New England in 1804 and especially to the west in 1816, Poinsett understood that his country could benefit from transportation facilities.
Election to Congress
In 1820, Poinsett won a seat in the United States House of Representatives for the Charleston district. As a congressman, Poinsett continued to call for internal improvements, but he also advocated the maintenance of a strong army and navy. In December 1823, Poinsett submitted a resolution calling upon the Committee on Naval Affairs to inquire into the expediency of authorizing the construction of ten additional sloops of war. As a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Poinsett took strong views on developments in South America. Poinsett's political views were aligned with such nationalists as Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun. Poinsett, like many opponents of Clay's American system, opposed the Tariff of 1824.
First Minister to Mexico
Poinsett simultaneously served as a special envoy to Mexico from 1822 to 1823, when the government of James Monroe became concerned about the stability of newly independent Mexico. Poinsett, a supporter of the Monroe Doctrine, was convinced that republicanism was the only guarantee of a peaceful, free form of government for North American countries, and tried to influence the government of Agustín de Iturbide, which was beginning to show signs of weakness and divisiveness. The U.S. recognized Mexican independence but it was not until 1825 and the establishment of the Mexican Republic that it sent a minister plenipotentiary. Andrew Jackson and several others turned down the appointment, but Poinsett accepted and resigned his congressional seat.
On January 12, 1828, in Mexico City, Poinsett signed the first treaty between the United States and Mexico, the Treaty of Limits, a treaty that recognized the U.S.-Mexico border established by the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty between Spain and the U.S. Because some U.S. political leaders were dissatisfied with the Treaty of Limits and the Adams–Onís Treaty, Poinsett was sent to negotiate acquisition of new territories for the United States, including Texas, New Mexico, and Upper California, as well as parts of Lower California, Sonora, Coahuila, and Nuevo León; but Poinsett's offer to purchase these areas was rejected by the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs headed by Juan Francisco de Azcárate. (Poinsett wrote Notes on Mexico, a memoir of his time in the First Mexican Empire and at the court of Agustín de Iturbide.)
He became embroiled in the country's political turmoil until his recall in 1830, but he did try to further U.S. interests in Mexico by seeking preferential treatment of U.S. goods over those of Britain, attempting to shift the U.S.–Mexico boundary, and urging the adoption of a constitution patterned on that of the U.S.
After visiting an area south of Mexico City near Taxco de Alarcón, Poinsett saw what later became known in the United States as the poinsettia. (In Mexico it is called Flor de Nochebuena, Christmas Eve flower, or Catarina). Poinsett, an avid amateur botanist, sent samples of the plant to the United States, and by 1836 the plant was widely known as the "poinsettia". Also a species of Mexican lizard, Sceloporus poinsettii, is named in Poinsett's honor.
Unionist
Although Poinsett was a proponent of the slave system and owned slaves, he returned to South Carolina in 1830 to support the Unionist position during the Nullification Crisis, again serving in the South Carolina state legislature (1830–1831). Poinsett also became a confidential agent of President Andrew Jackson, keeping Jackson abreast of situation in South Carolina between October 1832 and March 1833. In 1833, Poinsett married the widow Mary Izard Pringle (1780–1857), daughter of Ralph and Elizabeth (Stead) Izard.
Secretary of War
Poinsett served as Secretary of War from March 7, 1837, to March 5, 1841, overseeing the Trail of Tears, and presided over the continuing suppression of Native American raids by removal of Indians west of the Mississippi and over the Seminole War; reduced the fragmentation of the army by concentrating elements at central locations; equipped the light batteries of artillery regiments as authorized by the 1821 army organization act; and again retired to his plantation at Georgetown, South Carolina, in 1841.
Personal life
Promotion of American Arts
During the 1820s, Poinsett was a member of the prestigious society, the Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences, who counted among their members former presidents Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams and many prominent men of the day, including well-known representatives of the military, government service, medical and other professions. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1825 and as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1827.
In 1840 he was a cofounder of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science and the Useful Arts, a group of politicians advocating for the use of the "Smithson bequest" for a national museum that would showcase relics of the country and its leaders, celebrate American technology, and document the national resources of North America. The group was defeated in its efforts, as other groups wanted scientists, rather than political leaders, guiding the fortunes of what would become the Smithsonian Institution.
Freemasonry
It is unknown when Poinsett became a Master Mason, but it is known that he was a Past Master of Recovery Lodge #31, Greenville, and Solomon's Lodge, Charleston. Poinsett played a prominent role in defining Freemasonry in Mexico; he favoured promoting the York Rite, which was allied to the political interests of the United States. This became one of three strands, the other to being allied to Continental Freemasonry and the other an "independent" National Mexican Rite.
Later life
He died of tuberculosis, hastened by an attack of pneumonia, in Stateburg, South Carolina, in 1851, and is buried at the Church of the Holy Cross Episcopal Cemetery.
See also
Treaty of Limits (Mexico–United States)
References
External links
Joel Roberts Poinsett, Political Memory of Mexico ....for a more balanced view of Ponsett's involvement in Mexico(Article in Spanish)
Handbook of Texas Online: POINSETT, JOEL ROBERTS
The History of the Poinsettia
Joel Roberts Poinsett: The Man Behind The Flower
Joel Roberts Poinsett Historical Marker
Poinsett State Park In Wedgefield South Carolina
Poinsett as a Mason in Greenville, SC
1779 births
1851 deaths
United States Secretaries of War
Ambassadors of the United States to Mexico
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Episcopalians
American Freemasons
American proslavery activists
Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina
History of the foreign relations of Chile
Jacksonian members of the United States House of Representatives from South Carolina
Members of the South Carolina House of Representatives
Politicians from Charleston, South Carolina
Van Buren administration cabinet members
19th-century American botanists
19th-century American diplomats
19th-century American politicians
Burials in South Carolina
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Members of the United States House of Representatives who owned slaves
Diplomats from South Carolina |
421699 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings%20Ismay%2C%201st%20Baron%20Ismay | Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay | Hastings Lionel Ismay, 1st Baron Ismay (21 June 1887 – 17 December 1965), was a British politician, diplomat and general in the British Indian Army who was the first Secretary General of NATO. He also was Winston Churchill's chief military assistant during the Second World War.
Ismay was born in Nainital, India, in 1887, and educated in the United Kingdom at Charterhouse School and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After Sandhurst, he joined the Indian Army as an officer of the 21st Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry. During the First World War, he served with the Camel Corps in British Somaliland, where he joined in the British fight against the "Mad Mullah", Mohammed Abdullah Hassan. In 1925, Ismay became an Assistant Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID). After being promoted to the rank of colonel, he served as the military secretary for Lord Willingdon, the Viceroy of India, then returned to the CID as Deputy Secretary in 1936.
On 1 August 1938, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Ismay became the Committee's Secretary and began planning for the impending war. In May 1940, when Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he selected Ismay as his chief military assistant and staff officer. In that capacity, Ismay served as the principal link between Churchill and the Chiefs of Staff Committee. Ismay also accompanied Churchill to many of the Allied war conferences. For Ismay's advice and aid, "Churchill owed more, and admitted that he owed more" to him "than to anybody else, military or civilian, in the whole of the war."
After the end of the war, Ismay remained in the army for another year, and helped to reorganise the Ministry of Defence. He then retired from the military and served as Lord Mountbatten of Burma's Chief of Staff in India, helping to oversee its partition. From 1948 to 1951, he served as chairman of the council of the Festival of Britain, helping to organise and promote the event. Then, in 1951, when Churchill again became Prime Minister, he appointed Ismay Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.
Ismay accepted the position, but resigned after only six months to become the first Secretary General of NATO in 1952. While Secretary General, Ismay is also credited as having been the first person to say that the purpose of NATO was "to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down," a saying that has since become a common way to describe the dynamics of NATO. He served in this role until 1957, and helped establish and define the position. After retiring from NATO, Ismay wrote his memoirs, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay, served on a variety of corporate boards, and co-chaired the Ismay–Jacob Committee, which reorganised the Ministry of Defence once again. He died on 17 December 1965, at his home, Wormington Grange, Gloucestershire.
Early life
Ismay was born in Nainital, Kumaon, India, on 21 June 1887. His father, Sir Stanley Ismay, was a member of the Viceroy's Legislative Council, and his mother, Beatrice Ellen, was the daughter of an Army colonel. Ismay began his education in Britain at the Charterhouse School, and his parents hoped that after completing his education there he would attend Cambridge and enter the civil service.
Ismay, however, "had a sneaking desire to be a cavalry soldier", and after doing poorly on his final examinations at Charterhouse, he was not eligible to attend Cambridge. As a result, he entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in 1904. Ismay would later write: "Sandhurst never meant nearly so much to me as Charterhouse had", but he enjoyed his time at the college and studied alongside many men who went on to become important military officers, including Lord Gort, Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt and Cyril Newall.
Indian Army
After completing the course at Sandhurst, Ismay was placed fourth overall in its examinations and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Indian Army. Ismay was then attached to the Gloucestershire Regiment of the British Army in Ambala, where he served a one year mandatory apprenticeship. After leaving the regiment, Ismay did not immediately find a place in the Indian cavalry, so he spent nine months floating among positions with various British and Indian units.
In 1907, Ismay found a permanent position in the Indian cavalry, joining the 21st Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry, based at Risalpur. Ismay thoroughly enjoyed his time with the regiment, describing it as "blissful." In 1908, he saw his first action with the regiment, when it was sent into Afghanistan, pursuing Mohmand raiders who had taken several Hindu women as hostages. Immediately after Ismay's regiment returned from action, he was hospitalised in Peshawar due to heat stroke, but he recovered quickly and, along with the rest of his regiment, received the India General Service Medal.
In 1910, after a reorganisation of the Indian Army, Ismay's regiment moved from Risalpur to Jhelum, further from the frontier. Shortly thereafter, Ismay was appointed the adjutant of his regiment, a position which he held for four years, during which time he also read voraciously and developed a great admiration for Winston Churchill, whom he sought to emulate.
Somaliland
In early 1914, just before Ismay's appointment as adjutant was set to expire, he met C. A. L Howard, another British officer serving in India, who told him about an opportunity to serve with the King's African Rifles in British Somaliland. Ismay decided that this was "just the sort of job that [he] wanted," and applied immediately. Due to his reputation "as a thorough and dependable officer of sound judgement," Ismay was appointed second in command of the Somaliland Camel Corps, a cavalry unit led by Thomas Cubitt.
Ismay left India for Somaliland in late July 1914, and arrived on 9 August, shortly after the outbreak of the First World War in Europe. Like other officers in Somaliland, Ismay was "unhappy at being left out of the great war" and repeatedly asked for a transfer to the European front. In the end, however, Ismay's superiors decided that he was "so indispensable that, despite his longing for action in Europe, he was retained in Somaliland until 1920."
In Somaliland, the Camel Corps and other British soldiers were ordered to subdue an uprising by Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, known by the British as the "Mad Mullah", who had been fighting against them for more than twenty years. Ismay's commander, Thomas Cubitt, was determined to end the rebellion forcefully and quickly, so on 17 November 1914, he launched a major assault against Hassan's fortress at Shimber Berris. In the attack, Ismay fought closely alongside Adrian Carton de Wiart, later an important British officer in both World Wars. Not long after the attack on Shimber Berris, however, the Camel Corps received orders from London "forbidding all offensive operations in Somaliland", due to the misfortunes of the Army elsewhere. As a result of this order, British operations were limited for the duration of the First World War, and Ismay's unit undertook no further major offensives.
Despite limited British activity, a few operations combined with the effort of local forces led to "a drastic weakening" of Hassan's forces by 1918. Thus, after the armistice ending the First World War, the government sent Major General Arthur Hoskins to take control of the forces in Somaliland and defeat Hassan conclusively in battle. After Hoskins arrived, his initial plan for dealing with Hassan focussed on the use of the newly formed Royal Air Force, so Ismay and the Camel Corps were consigned to a minor role. Hoskins's plans, however, were found "overscaled and far too costly", so they were shelved throughout most of 1918 and 1919.
In October 1919, plans for Hoskins's operation were finally approved, and on 21 January 1920, the attack against Hassan commenced. After several days of bombing, Ismay was ordered to lead an assault by the Camel Corps against Hassan's fortress at Jid Ali. On , Ismay's forces first attempted the attack and were repulsed by strong resistance. That night, however, Hassan and his forces fled Jid Ali to take refuge in the countryside. Ismay was assigned to track down and capture Hassan, but he "had no idea of where he was", and was forced to begin a large search.
Ismay pursued Hassan for nearly two weeks, and managed to capture many members of his family and people close to him, including seven of his sons. Hassan himself managed to evade Ismay and on , the effort to capture him was called off. Though Hassan was never captured, his power was broken, and he died in December 1920 of influenza. For his service in the effort against Hassan, Ismay received the Distinguished Service Order and was twice mentioned in despatches.
Interwar years
In April 1920, Ismay left Somaliland for England. While en route, he received word that he had been nominated for a place at the Indian Army's Staff College, Quetta. Depressed by the loss of life and destruction of the First World War, Ismay turned down the nomination, and "was even seriously thinking of resigning [his] commission" in the Army. After arriving in London, Ismay was given twelve months of medical leave, and decided to stay in the army. He then attempted to reclaim his seat at the Staff College, but was told that it had already been given to someone else.
Marriage and service in India
While on medical leave, Ismay met Laura Kathleen Clegg, with whom he quickly fell in love. The two were engaged only three weeks after meeting. After four months, however, Ismay was proclaimed fit for duty, despite his remaining eight months of leave, and ordered back to India, where he rejoined his old regiment. His time back in India was relatively quiet, as there was "no serious fighting" in the area of his regiment at the time. In February 1921, Ismay took the qualifying exam for the Staff College in Rawalpindi, and passed, earning himself a seat for the next year.
In April, Ismay returned to London on leave, and married Clegg, with whom he eventually had three daughters. Ismay remained in London until February 1922, when he entered the Staff College at Quetta. Ismay excelled at the Staff College, and its commandant called him "one of the two best, if not the best, of the students who have passed through my hands." In his final thesis at the Staff College, Ismay correctly predicted that the next European war would be a total war, but he incorrectly predicted that cavalry would continue to play a role in future warfare.
After the Staff College, Ismay became Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General of the Indian Army. In that position, he worked closely with Claude Auchinleck, beginning a long-standing personal and professional relationship between the two. Ismay found that his work as Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General "was a valuable experience", but did not enjoy it.
Service in England
In 1924, Air Vice-Marshal Philip Game suggested to Ismay that he apply for a seat at the RAF Staff College, Andover. Although Ismay "had no desire to learn to be a pilot", he was happy for the opportunity to return to England, and went to study at the college. After completing the programme, he was approached about the possibility of serving as an Assistant Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) under Maurice Hankey. Ismay gladly accepted the position, starting work in December 1925. In the six months between finishing the Staff College and beginning at the CID, Ismay returned to India and held a staff position at the headquarters of the Indian Army in Simla.
As Assistant Secretary, Ismay directed several of the CID's subcommittees, including those for Censorship and War Emergency Legislation, Principal Supply Officers, and Co-ordination of Departmental Action. As the Secretary of the Committee for the Co-ordination of Departmental Action, Ismay "was responsible for seeing that all plans and preparations made by Government Departments or sub-committees of the CID to meet the eventuality of war, were incorporated under appropriate headings in a document known as the War Book." This task ended up consuming most of Ismay's time as Assistant Secretary, and gave him "exceptional insight into the ways of Whitehall."
While serving as Assistant Secretary, Ismay made important friends and gained the backing of Hankey, by whom he was "greatly valued". Largely through Hankey's influence, Ismay was nominated as a Companion of the Order of the Bath in the Civil Division, an honour which he received in 1931.
Lord Willingdon and the War Office
In December 1930, after five years, Ismay left his position at the CID. He was promoted colonel and hoped to take command of the 12th Cavalry. Instead, he became the military secretary for Lord Willingdon, the newly appointed Viceroy of India.
In this role, Ismay served as the "unofficial link" between Willingdon and the Indian Army. He also led Willingdon's personal staff, and organised his many trips throughout India. Ismay was also responsible for Willingdon's safety, and took precautions after he was threatened by assassins. In December 1932, Ismay was informed that his service with Willingdon was over and that he was expected to take up a position in the War Office during the next year.
At the War Office, Ismay served as an intelligence officer with responsibility for the Middle East, Far East, the Americas, the Soviet Union, Poland and the Baltic States. Ismay enjoyed his work, and wrote that "intelligence is perhaps the most interesting of all Staff work." During his three years in the position, Ismay worked directly under Sir John Dill, who would later serve as the Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
Committee of Imperial Defence
In 1936, Maurice Hankey became determined to "bring Ismay in as his deputy and eventual successor" at the CID. Hoping that the appointment would "strengthen the organization of the CID" and enhance its influence, Hankey offered Ismay the position of Deputy Secretary. Although the appointment meant that Ismay would probably never command troops again, he viewed it as an important opportunity and "accepted with scarcely a moment's hesitation." A week thereafter, Ismay received a letter offering him the command of a cavalry brigade in India, but declined, solidifying his choice to remain a staff officer.
As Deputy Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, Ismay had broad responsibilities, and was "concerned with every aspect of planning and preparation for a war which seemed imminent." Ismay dealt extensively with a variety of matters and focussed much of his attention on the preparation of anti-aircraft defences and co-ordination among the military services. As the crisis in Europe escalated, however, Hankey announced his intention to retire in June 1938. Hankey hoped that one person, preferably Ismay, would inherit all of the positions he had occupied, including Secretary of the CID, clerk of the Privy Council, and Secretary to the Cabinet, but the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, decided that the positions should be split and assigned to different people.
In the end, Ismay was named only to the position of Secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, effective 1 August 1938. Ismay assumed the position scarcely more than a year before the outbreak of the Second World War, and the war totally dominated his time in office. Soon after Ismay took office, Hitler initiated a crisis over the Sudetenland. While Chamberlain was at the Munich Conference attempting to resolve the crisis, Ismay ordered the digging of trenches in London as protection against air attacks, should war occur. Ismay later said that he thought Britain should have gone to war at Munich instead of waiting, but said nothing at the time. As it became increasingly clear that war was inevitable in 1939, Ismay also prepared for a "smooth, simple and practically instantaneous" transition from the Committee of Imperial Defence to the War Cabinet, or whatever other wartime authority the government might choose.
Second World War
With the outbreak of the Second World War, the CID was immediately absorbed into the War Cabinet as Ismay had planned. In the midst of the turmoil, Ismay was promoted to Major-General, and began to work closely with Chamberlain, accompanying him on a visit to France in December 1939. Ismay disagreed with several Allied strategic choices, including the decision to try to stop the German advance in Belgium, but kept his doubts to himself.
Chiefs of Staff Committee
In April 1940, Winston Churchill took control of the Military Co-ordination Committee, charged with overseeing all of the military services. He selected Ismay as his chief staff officer, which also gave Ismay the additional responsibility of serving on the Chiefs of Staff Committee. While serving under Churchill had been a life-long dream for Ismay, he was initially sceptical about the duties of his new position, which seemed unclear and poorly defined.
On 10 May, after the beginning of the Battle of France, Chamberlain resigned, and Churchill became both Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. Ismay, who later called Churchill "the greatest War Prime Minister in our history", was "thrilled" by this development, and continued to act as Churchill's chief staff officer and military adviser. According to Churchill, the two developed a close "personal and official connection [that] was preserved unbroken and unweakened" throughout the war.
As part of this relationship, not long after Churchill became Prime Minister, he arranged for Ismay to be appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in June 1940. From the very moment he became Prime Minister, Churchill "relied heavily on General Pug Ismay," who provided a crucial bridge to the military establishment. Ismay served as the "principal assistant to Mr. Churchill in his capacity as Minister of Defence", continued to serve as the Secretary of the Imperial Defence Chiefs of Staff Committee, and became Deputy Secretary of the War Cabinet.
Ismay was crucial to running the war effort, as he was able to effectively link the military and civilian leadership. Jock Colville, Churchill's private secretary, wrote that Ismay had the "tact, patience, and skill in promoting compromise" needed to keep the war running smoothly." Ismay had the additional advantage of being admired by the Service Chiefs for his long and distinguished record as a soldier.
In his role, Ismay handled "nearly all military messages" from Churchill to the Service Chiefs. Ismay also gave Churchill advice on military matters, and often "begged him to be reasonable" when he contemplated foolish actions, believing that Churchill's greatest fault was his "impetuous nature and impatience with opposition." When the Chiefs of Staff found Churchill's demands unfeasible, Ismay took the role of "converting the Prime Minister" to their viewpoint.
Allied conferences
As Churchill's chief military adviser, Ismay frequently attended wartime conferences and meetings of the Allies and accompanied other British leaders, such as Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, on their travels. Ismay's travel to the conferences began in 1941, when he went with Lord Beaverbrook to the first Moscow Conference. Because British participation in the conference was a secret, Ismay faked influenza to explain his absence from London while it was taking place. The Conference was also the first time that Ismay worked closely with the Americans, whom he found "quite congenial."
Ismay would continue to work closely with the Americans throughout the remainder of the war, and he accompanied Churchill on his 1942 trip to the United States. Shortly after their return, US General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in Britain to command the American forces. He established close relations with Ismay, who liked him greatly, and assisted him in co-ordinating with both British forces and the Cabinet. Eisenhower thought highly of Ismay, remembering him for his "stalwart support", and noting, "He was one of those men whose great ability condemned him throughout the war to a staff position. Consequently his name may be forgotten; but the contributions he made to the winning of the war were equal to those of many whose names became household words."
Not long after Eisenhower arrived, on 16 August 1942, Ismay was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General. Around the same time, his good relations with the Americans were recognised by others in the government. Thus, in November 1942, when Eleanor Roosevelt visited Britain, Lady Ismay was chosen to host her for one night of her stay.
1943 conferences
In January 1943, Ismay accompanied Churchill to the Casablanca Conference. Ismay attended nearly all of the proceedings of the Conference, and helped work towards consensus where the Americans and British disagreed on issues. Ismay was also appointed to the committee which wrote the formal report of the conference. After the conference, Ismay visited the American headquarters in Algiers to meet with Eisenhower, and helped resolve some differences of opinion between Eisenhower and his British colleagues.
After Casablanca, Ismay accompanied Churchill to the third Washington Conference in May 1943. At the conference, Ismay first met the American Admiral William D. Leahy, who is often described as his American counterpart. The two developed a friendly relationship, and Leahy wrote in his memoirs: "General Sir Hastings Ismay became my favorite, perhaps because his position closely paralleled my own".
After the Washington Conference came the Quebec Conference in August 1943. Once again, Ismay attended along with Churchill. The Quebec Conference was the first time that the Allied leaders discussed the full details of Operation Overlord, so Ismay spent much of his time explaining details of the operation to Churchill and other leaders. During the conference, Ismay also observed that Dudley Pound "had had a breakdown". He took the information to Churchill who demanded Pound's resignation a week later.
Shortly after returning from Quebec, Ismay participated in his next conference, travelling with Anthony Eden to the Moscow Conference in October and November, where he served as Eden's top military adviser. At the conference, Ismay handled all of the Soviet questions about the planning for Operation Overlord, and met Joseph Stalin personally for the first time. After the conference, Ismay wrote that he "was optimistic about [sic] post-war relations with Russia", showing his belief that the meeting had gone well.
Only four days after returning from the Moscow Conference, Ismay left England again for the Cairo Conference and Teheran Conference with Churchill. One major source of conflict at the Cairo Conference was an American proposal to appoint an overall commander for the strategic bombing of Germany. Ismay and the British were strongly opposed, and Ismay wrote a long paper against the idea, which became the basis of British policy on the subject. At Teheran, Ismay helped to argue the case for Operation Overlord, but immediately after the conference he developed bronchitis and returned to England by ship, scrapping his other plans for the trip.
1944–1945
In the first several months of 1944, Ismay spent almost all of his time planning for the Normandy Landings. As part of the planning, Ismay personally coordinated the plans for Operation Bodyguard and Operation Fortitude, which were designed to deceive the Germans about the planned Normandy landings. In March, Duncan Sandys, Churchill's son-in-law, told Ismay that Basil Liddell Hart, a noted strategist and historian, had somehow discovered the secret plans for the Normandy landings. This development had the potential to compromise the entire operation, so Ismay personally interviewed Liddell Hart, who claimed to have simply "worked it all out for himself" without any access to secret information. After their interview, Ismay directed the matter to the MI5, who never found evidence of wrongdoing, although it is suspected that Liddell Hart may in fact have received information from military planners.
On 20 May 1944, less than a month before the Normandy Landings were scheduled to take place, Ismay was promoted to the rank of full general. After the successful D-Day landings, King George VI decided to visit the troops in Normandy, and selected Ismay to accompany him on the visit. In September, Ismay accompanied Churchill to the Second Quebec Conference. Ismay also accompanied Churchill on his visits to Moscow and Paris in late 1944.
In February 1945, Ismay attended the Yalta Conference. He found the conference different from the previous ones where "the military element had been the prima donna, occupying the centre of the stage." Instead, at Yalta, political issues took precedence, leaving Ismay and other military advisers "waiting for calls that never came".
On VE Day, Ismay found it "quite impossible to be completely happy about the future," due to the lingering Japanese threat, and the rising threat of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, he was happy to be one of only three men to hold the same high government position throughout the war in Europe, along with Edward Bridges, 1st Baron Bridges and the King.
Post-war military service
After VE Day, Ismay accompanied Churchill to the Potsdam Conference. Like Yalta, the conference focussed primarily on political issues, so there was little for Ismay to do. After Clement Attlee defeated Churchill in the 1945 election, becoming Prime Minister, Ismay kept his position, working with Attlee at the conference, but remained loyal to Churchill. Ismay and Churchill remained friends for the remainder of their lives, and Ismay even helped Churchill write his memoirs, reviewing and commenting on each chapter of his manuscript.
Shortly after the Potsdam Conference, the war in Asia ended on VJ Day. After this victory, Ismay "would have liked to retire at once", but at Attlee's request he remained in the military for another year. Before continuing work, however, Ismay travelled to New York on 6 September, for a six-week vacation; he received a warm welcome.
Over the next year, Ismay worked largely on the issue of reform for the Ministry of Defence. From December 1945 to February 1946, Ismay worked with a small committee to draft the Statement Relating to Defence, which formed the basis of reforms implemented by Attlee later that year. For his role, Ismay became known as the "'chief architect' of the post-war Ministry of Defence."
During the year following the war, Ismay received many honours for his service. In August 1945, as part of Churchill's resignation honours, he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour, an honour rarely bestowed on soldiers. The next January, he received the Legion of Merit from the United States. He was promoted Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in June. Finally, he was named the Chairman of the Council of the Royal National Institute for the Blind.
In November 1946, Ismay announced his intention to retire. Attlee accepted his retirement, effective on 31 December 1946. Immediately after retiring, in the 1947 New Year Honours, Ismay was created a baron taking the title Baron Ismay, of Wormington in the County of Gloucester. He accepted the barony and took his seat in the House of Lords in February.
Partition of India
Shortly after Ismay's retirement, Lord Mountbatten of Burma was appointed as the last British Viceroy of India and Ismay offered to serve as his chief of staff. Thus, in March 1947, Ismay left with Mountbatten for India to help preside over its transition to independence. After arriving in India, Ismay soon came to the conclusion that the situation there was dire, heading for civil war, and told Mountbatten that "India was a ship on fire in mid-ocean with ammunition in her hold."
When Ismay and Mountbatten arrived, they were committed to preserving a unified India, but Ismay soon realised "that the Moslem League would not agree to any plan which did not provide for the creation of Pakistan as an independent sovereign state." In April, after several unsuccessful meetings with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Mountbatten came to the same conclusion and began drawing up plans for the partition.
Over the next month Mountbatten finalised his partition plan, and on , he sent Ismay back to London to present it to the British government. Ismay presented the plan to the Prime Minister and Cabinet, casting partition as a Hobson's choice. Ismay stayed in England for the next month, and helped to alter the plan based on the cabinet's suggestions, before returning to India on .
Once the partition plan had been accepted, Ismay worked on implementing the details. In particular, Ismay dealt with the issue of dividing the Indian Army. Based on his own experiences and love of the Indian Army, Ismay did his "utmost to persuade" the leaders of the new Indian and Pakistani states not to separate the army immediately. His efforts failed due to the opposition of Jinnah.
Ismay also travelled to Kashmir to ask Hari Singh to hold an immediate referendum over whether his territory would join India or Pakistan. Once again, Ismay was unsuccessful and Singh "changed the subject" each time that Ismay tried to discuss the referendum. Throughout the period immediately following independence, Ismay also tried to ensure that stories printed in the Indian and Pakistani press about the partition were accurate, but once again he was largely unsuccessful.
The situation in India continued to deteriorate throughout the summer and autumn of 1947. Nevertheless, Ismay and Mountbatten had agreed that Ismay would remain in his position for only three to four months after partition. In December 1947, he left India to return to England. Shortly after his return, Ismay served briefly on the British delegation to the United Nations to deal with the Kashmir issue. Ismay played only a limited role, as the Pakistanis suspected him of pro-Indian sympathies.
Festival of Britain
Shortly after Ismay returned from the United Nations, Prime Minister Attlee asked him to become the Chairman of the Council of the Festival of Britain, scheduled to take place in 1951. Ismay accepted the offer, and on 10 March 1948, he officially took the position of chairman. The appointment was largely symbolic, and Ismay "was at least partly appointed to forestall potential criticism by his friend Winston Churchill." The Council, however, wielded "slight, but not insignificant influence" and Ismay took his duties seriously.
Ismay helped to ensure that the festival would be truly national in character, rather than just confined to London. As such, in June 1949, he called together all of the mayors in Britain to discuss the festival; this was the first meeting of all British mayors since 1916. Ismay also publicly defended the large cost of the festival, and emphasised its historic nature, saying, "We are consciously and deliberately determined to make history." Once the festival opened, Ismay hosted various notable guests, including Margaret Truman, the daughter of US President Harry Truman.
Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
In the 1951 general election held shortly after the conclusion of the Festival of Britain, Churchill's Conservative Party once again won a majority in Parliament, making Churchill Prime Minister for a second time. The day after the election, Churchill asked Ismay to become the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations in his cabinet. Ismay "was overjoyed at the prospect of serving under Churchill again" and accepted the post immediately. Although not a politician, Ismay was well-suited for the position because of his close relationships with the leaders of the commonwealth countries, largely the result of his work during the war.
As a result of his military background and experience, Ismay became "more closely involved in defence matters than is usual for a Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations," and often served as de facto Minister of Defence and serving as temporary Minister of Defence until the permanent appointee, Harold Alexander, was able to take office. Through his close involvement in defence matters, Ismay began to be involved with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In January 1952, he accompanied Churchill to a meeting in Ottawa about the alliance, and in February 1952 he attended the NATO Lisbon Conference as the British Ministry of Defence representative. When leaving the conference, Ismay remarked to Alfred Gruenther, "this is the first that I have seen of NATO, and thank heaven it's the last."
Secretary General of NATO
At the Lisbon Conference, the members of NATO agreed to appoint a Secretary General who would direct the organisation's staff and serve as Vice-Chairman of the North Atlantic Council. The position was initially offered to Sir Oliver Franks, but he declined. As such, the allies scrambled to find someone else to take the position. Two weeks later, the countries agreed to ask Ismay to become Secretary General at the suggestion of Churchill and Anthony Eden.
Eden asked Ismay to accept the position, but his response "was an immediate and emphatic negative," as he saw NATO as an overly bureaucratic and inefficient organisation and complained that the position of Secretary General was "divided and ill-defined." Churchill then personally asked Ismay to accept the position, telling him that "NATO provided the best, if not the only, hope of peace in our time." After further urging, Ismay reluctantly agreed to take the job. On , the Atlantic Council officially passed a resolution appointing Ismay Secretary General, and he started work on .
Ismay's appointment to the position was well-received, enjoying the unanimous support of all the NATO members. The press and public also responded favourably. The Times wrote: "of all the candidates whose names have been mentioned, Lord Ismay would seem to have the strongest qualifications for the post." The New York Times applauded his "vast experience in military planning, strategy, and administration," and The Washington Post wrote that Ismay would bring NATO "great authority, experience and energy and a personal charm that can dissolve difficulties."
As the first Secretary General, Ismay was "assuming an entirely new role in the history of international organizations," and as such he helped to define the position itself. While Ismay "deemed it wise not to step too boldly in a political role" in disputes among the members, he asserted himself strongly on issues relevant to the organisation of NATO. From the very beginning of his time in office, Ismay worked to empower the permanent representatives to NATO, and emphasised that they had the same legal authority to make decisions as the NATO foreign ministers.
Ismay was also a proponent of NATO expansion, saying that NATO "must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella."
However, before Warsaw Pact was even put in place, he opposed the request to join NATO made by the USSR in 1954
saying that "the Soviet request to join NATO is like an unrepentant burglar requesting to join the police force" thus making apparent that NATO alliance ("the police force") was directed against the USSR. As stated in the official NATO website "the request tested the limits of NATO's willingness to admit new members".
As Secretary General, Ismay also worked to encourage closer political co-ordination among the members of the alliance. During the Suez Crisis he offered his good offices to help resolve issues among members of the alliance. Ismay also offered to help mediate disputes over Cyprus.
In December 1956, Ismay decided to retire from NATO. He told the press that "he was not giving up his position for personal reasons, but because he felt it needed a fresh hand and a fresh brain." Paul-Henri Spaak was immediately chosen as his successor, but Ismay remained in office until May 1957, when he left with "the affection and respect" of all the NATO members. While Secretary General, Ismay is also credited as having been the first person to say that the purpose of NATO was "to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down," a saying that has since become a common way to quickly describe the alliance.
Retirement
Immediately after leaving NATO, Ismay was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II with an appointment to the Order of the Garter. His youngest daughter Mary had married George Seymour, equerry to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and their daughter Katharine is a god-daughter of Princess Margaret.
He was appointed to boards of several corporations including the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. Ismay also began writing his memoirs, The Memoirs of General Lord Ismay, which were published in 1960 by Viking Press. In his memoirs, Ismay focussed principally on his Second World War service, and as such, one reviewer called them "a most significant addition to the literature of the Second World War."
In 1963, Ismay was asked to again assist in a review of the organisation of the British military along with Sir Ian Jacob. Although Ismay was ill throughout most of the review and did relatively little of the work, "his influence was strong", and the final product of the review largely reflected his opinions. In the end, the Ismay–Jacob Report recommended strengthening the central power of the Ministry of Defence substantially, and in 1964, Parliament implemented its recommendations.
Ismay died on 17 December 1965 at his home Wormington Grange, Gloucestershire, at the age of 78. As he had no male heir, his title became extinct.
In popular culture
In the television drama Churchill and the Generals by Paul Hardwick.
In Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy by Nigel Davenport.
In the 2017 film Darkest Hour, by Richard Lumsden.
In the 2017 film Viceroy's House by Michael Gambon.
Arms
Citations
General references
Books
Articles
External links
NATO Declassified – Lord Ismay (biography)
Indian Army Officers 1939–1945
Generals of World War II
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British Secretaries of State for Commonwealth Affairs
British Secretaries of State
Companions of the Distinguished Service Order
Foreign recipients of the Legion of Merit
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Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst
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421706 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim%20Murphy | Jim Murphy | James Francis Murphy (born 23 August 1967) is a Scottish former politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2014 to 2015 and Secretary of State for Scotland from 2008 to 2010. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for East Renfrewshire, formerly Eastwood, from 1997 to 2015. He identifies as a social democrat and has expressed support for a foreign policy of Western interventionism. He has been described as being on the political right of the Labour Party.
Born in Glasgow, Murphy's family moved to South Africa in 1980. After returning to Scotland, he became involved in student politics and became Scotland's youngest MP at the age of 29. Murphy served in the New Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office from 2005 to 2006, Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform from 2006 to 2007 and Minister of State for Europe from 2007 to 2008. From 2008 to 2010, Murphy served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Scotland. After Labour lost the 2010 general election, Murphy served in Ed Miliband's Shadow cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Defence and Shadow Secretary of State for International Development.
Following Johann Lamont's resignation, Murphy was elected Leader of the Scottish Labour Party in the 2014 leadership election. He led Scottish Labour into the 2015 general election, in which he said, "I will not lose a single seat to the SNP" before the party lost 40 of its 41 seats during a landslide victory for the Scottish National Party (SNP), who won 56 of the 59 seats in Scotland. After surviving a vote of no confidence, Murphy announced in May 2015 he would step down as leader that June. The subsequent leadership contest was won by his deputy leader Kezia Dugdale.
Early life and career
Murphy was born in Glasgow and raised in a flat in Arden. He was educated at St Louise's Primary School, followed by Bellarmine Secondary School in Glasgow until 1980, when, after his father became unemployed, he and his family emigrated to Cape Town, South Africa. In Cape Town, he attended Milnerton High School.
In 1985, Murphy returned to Scotland aged 17 to avoid service in the South African Defence Force. He studied Politics and European Law at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow but failed to graduate. During sabbaticals from his studies, he held the posts of President of both NUS Scotland and NUS. He dropped out of university to become the youngest Scottish MP at the age of 29.
During his time at university, Murphy was elected President of the Scottish National Union of Students, one of the "special region" organisations within the NUS, serving from 1992 until 1994. Murphy then took a further sabbatical from university in 1994 to serve as the President of the National Union of Students, an office which he held from 1994 to 1996, during which time he was a member of Labour Students. As NUS President, he also served, ex officio, as a Director of Endsleigh Insurance from 1994 to 1996.
In 1995, the NUS dropped its opposition to the abolition of the student grant. Murphy was condemned by a House of Commons early day motion, introduced by Ken Livingstone and signed by 13 other Labour MPs, for "intolerant and dictatorial behaviour" regarding Clive Lewis' suspension. He was elected for a second term as NUS President, serving until 1996. He then became special projects manager of the Scottish Labour Party.
Early parliamentary career
Murphy was selected to stand as the Labour Party candidate in the seat of Eastwood at the 1997 general election. He was elected as MP for Eastwood on 1 May 1997, winning the formerly safe Conservative seat with a majority of 3,236 as Scotland's youngest MP.
From 1999 to 2001, Murphy was a member of the Public Accounts Select Committee, which oversees public expenditure. In February 2001, he was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Helen Liddell, the Secretary of State for Scotland, after the resignation of Frank Roy over the Carfin Grotto fiasco. Upon becoming a PPS, he stood down from his previous other roles as the Vice Chair of the Labour Party's Treasury, Northern Ireland and Culture, Media and Sport Committees.
At the 2001 general election he was re-elected as MP for Eastwood, with an increased majority of 9,141. In late 2001 he suggested bombing the poppy fields of Afghanistan to try to destroy the opium crop. In June 2002, he was appointed as a government whip, with responsibility for the Scotland Office and the Northern Ireland Office. His responsibilities were expanded in November 2002 to include the Department of Trade and Industry, and again in June 2003 to cover the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development. He was the Chair of the Labour Friends of Israel from 2001 to 2002.
In government
Junior government minister
For the 2005 general election, the Eastwood constituency was renamed East Renfrewshire, although the boundaries were unchanged. Murphy was re-elected with a majority of 6,657 and subsequently promoted to ministerial rank as the Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office. His responsibilities in that role included the promotion of e-government, better regulation and modernising public services. In January 2006, he was the government minister responsible for introducing the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 in the House of Commons. The act was controversial because of a perception it was an enabling act substantially removing the ancient British constitutional restriction on the executive introducing and altering laws without assent or scrutiny by Parliament. The bill proved unpopular with MPs and the Green Party but received royal assent on 8 November 2006.
Murphy was promoted in May 2006 to become Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform. He oversaw the Welfare Reform Act 2007 and told a conference in Edinburgh the housing benefit changes and employment and support allowance would help single parents and older citizens back into work. The act was criticised over the involvement of private insurers in its drafting and as being part of a wider move towards workfare and a disability policy based around Work Capability Assessment. His reforms helped lay the foundations for the policies of subsequent Conservative governments, which saw thousands of people with health conditions and disabilities dying within six weeks of being declared fit for work.
Murphy was promoted to Minister of State for Europe in June 2007. He helped to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon, which was confirmed on 16 July 2007. The stated aim of the treaty was to "complete the process started by the Treaty of Amsterdam [1997] and by the Treaty of Nice [2001] with a view to enhancing the efficiency and democratic legitimacy of the Union and to improving the coherence of its action." He was commended for his commission of the "Engagement: Public Diplomacy in a Globalised World" collection of essays, organised with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Secretary of State for Scotland
In October 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown appointed Murphy to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Scotland, with additional responsibility for retaining Scottish seats at the next general election. He was also appointed to the Privy Council. In 2009, he apologised "on behalf of all politicians" for the expenses scandal. He was also the cabinet minister responsible for co-ordinating Pope Benedict's visit to the UK in 2010 - which was the first ever state visit by a Pope to the UK.
Shadow Cabinet
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence
At the 2010 general election, the Labour Party held every seat they had won in Scotland in 2005, although they lost the election overall. Murphy was subsequently one of the two campaign managers for David Miliband's failed bid for the leadership of the Labour Party, along with Douglas Alexander. Following the election of Ed Miliband, Murphy was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Defence on 8 October 2010. Also in 2010, The Herald awarded him with the title of "Best Scot at Westminster" for a second year in a row, having given him the title for the first time in 2009.
In 2011, The Daily Telegraph published documents, compiled by a senior US official at the US Embassy in London and published by WikiLeaks, stating that throughout 2009, Murphy had a leading role in organising the support of opposition parties in promoting the implementation of the Commission on Scottish Devolution's recommendations. The aim was to "block an independence referendum" in Scotland.
As Shadow Defence Secretary, Murphy criticised moves to boycott Israel, stating that the Labour Party's policy was to avoid participation in boycotts. He praised the "vital" role of NATO during the military intervention in the 2011 Libyan crisis resolution, stating that Libya had been set "on a path to censure, democratic and peaceful future". He also criticised the scrapping of the Rolls-Royce Nimrod, stating it was "probably the most expensive technically capable aircraft in our history" and it had been treated "like second hand car sent to scrap" despite its usefulness in defence.
Murphy co-chaired the review of the Labour Party in Scotland with Sarah Boyack, commissioned by Ed Miliband in May 2011 in response to the landslide victory by the Scottish National Party in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, which reported in August of that year.
On 3 July 2013, Murphy criticised the Unite trade union for "bullying" and "overstepping the mark" for allegedly interfering with the selection of a candidate in Falkirk. A Labour Party investigation later cleared Unite of any wrongdoing.
Murphy voted against the restriction of housing benefit for those in social housing deemed to have excess bedrooms, otherwise known as the "Bedroom Tax", in favour of allowing same sex marriage and against capping discretionary working age benefits, allowing them to rise in line with prices.
Shadow Secretary of State for International Development
In 2013, Murphy was moved to the post of Shadow Secretary of State for International Development in a "purge of Blairites" by Ed Miliband. His unease with the Labour leader's decision to oppose military action in Syria may have contributed to the move. He stated he had agreed to take a more prominent role in the Better Together campaign to keep Scotland in the UK. Murphy told a radio show in October 2013 that female soldiers should be able to serve in combat roles. In March 2014, Murphy criticised FIFA for the management of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, citing the "sub-human working conditions" he saw when visiting the worker camps for the Qatar stadiums.
Expenses
A 2010 commission chaired by Thomas Legg demanded Murphy repay £577.46 in expenses which he had overclaimed. He did not appeal, and repaid the money in full. Expenses documents made available showed he also claimed over £1 million between 2001 and 2012. In 2007/8 he claimed £3,900 for food, £2,284 for petty cash and £4,884 for a new bathroom. He claimed £249 for a TV set and a further £99 for a TV stand; £1762.50 of taxpayers money paid for Murphy's website whilst further claims included Labour party adverts in the local press. He claimed almost £2000 of public cash to pay private accountants to handle his tax returns.
In 2012, Murphy was among a group of 27 MPs named as benefiting from up to £20,000 per year expenses to rent accommodation in London, at the same time as letting out property they owned in the city. Although the practice did not break rules, it has been characterised as a "loophole" that allows politicians to profit from Commons allowances. He also designated his constituency home in Glasgow as his second home for which he claimed £780 a month in mortgage interest payments in 2007/2008.
Scottish independence referendum campaign
During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Murphy gained prominence in the media for his role in the "No" campaign, due to his "100 Streets in 100 Days" tour. He briefly suspended the tour on 28 August 2014, after an egg was thrown at him by a member of the public in Kirkcaldy. Video evidence showed members of the public wearing 'Yes' campaign insignias berating him as he spoke. He claimed this was the result of an orchestrated attack by mobs of protesters organised by the Yes Scotland campaign in a deliberate attempt to intimidate him. The man responsible was a local resident who was a supporter of Scottish independence, who alleged that Jim Murphy had not answered a question asked of him. Pleading guilty to assault, he apologised for 'bringing the Yes campaign into disrepute unintentionally'.
Murphy was awarded The Spectator's Campaigner of the Year prize for his role in the 'No' campaign during the independence debate.
Leader of the Scottish Labour Party
Election to leadership and early activities
Following Johann Lamont's resignation as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Murphy announced that he would be a candidate in the election to replace her, alongside Neil Findlay MSP and Sarah Boyack MSP. He resigned from the Labour Party Shadow Cabinet in November 2014 to focus on his campaign. The Guardian's Kevin McKenna argued Murphy's tour during the 2014 referendum campaign "wasn't really about his new-found enthusiasm for the union... [but] was, instead, a three-month job interview for the post of leader of the Labour party in Scotland". In announcing his candidacy, Murphy stated he would end the electoral losing streak of Labour in Scotland, creating a revival similar to Tony Blair's return to power in 1997 in the UK. On 13 December 2014, Murphy was elected as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, having secured 56% of the vote under the party's electoral college system.
In December 2014, Murphy stated he was in favour for alcohol ban at Scottish football matches to be overturned on a trial basis. Mhari McGowan, representing Assist, a domestic violence support organisation, called the proposal "absolutely crazy". Ruth Davidson of the Conservative Party had previously called for a review of the policy in 2013.
In February 2015, Murphy claimed that four times as many NHS operations were being cancelled in Scotland as in England. When it emerged that the claim was based on a misreading of the statistics, Murphy had to delete a YouTube video and a message on social media he had made capitalising on the false claim.
In March 2015, citing figures from The Guardian on the low rate of Scotland's poorest pupils going to university, Murphy confirmed that higher education tuition would remain free for Scottish students.
2015 general election
On his election as party leader Murphy said he was determined under his leadership Labour would not lose any MPs to the SNP in the British general election of May 2015. On 27 February 2015, Murphy announced that he would again stand for the Westminster parliamentary seat of East Renfrewshire in the election. In the run-up to the 2015 general election, Murphy predicted that a late swing would save Labour in spite of unfavourable polls. During his campaign, the SNP suspended two members of their party after it emerged that they had disrupted Murphy's speeches with fellow campaigner Eddie Izzard.
During Murphy's time as leader he took part in a debate at Glasgow University with Nicola Sturgeon, Ruth Davidson and Willie Rennie. During the debate the panel were asked about their stance on drugs, mainly if drug laws should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament and what their individual experiences with drugs were. When the panel were questioned if they had ever tried cannabis, Jim Murphy stated that "in the housing scheme where I grew up, glue sniffing was the thing".
On 7 May 2015, the Scottish National Party won 56 of the 59 Scottish seats at Westminster and Scottish Labour lost 40 of the 41 seats it was defending. Murphy lost his own East Renfrewshire seat to the SNP's Kirsten Oswald, leading to calls for his resignation.
Murphy, his chief of staff John McTernan and strategy head Blair McDougall were criticised for their role in Labour's defeat. Criticism was made of Labour party resources in Scotland being assigned to favoured candidates such as Alexander and Curran. Murphy stated that the loss was due to "an absence of ideas" rather than a "lack of passion", and referenced Labour's additional defeats in England as another factor affecting the party's success. Following his defeat, he said he would remain Leader of Scottish Labour, despite calls for his resignation.
In spite of surviving a vote of no confidence by 17 votes to 14 at a party meeting in Glasgow, Murphy announced on 16 May 2015 that he intended to step down as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party in June. At the same press conference Murphy also stated that he wanted to have a successor as leader in place by the summer, and confirmed he would not be standing for a seat at the Scottish Parliament in the 2016 election. He added that Scottish Labour was the "least modernised part of the Labour movement", and commented that problem with the Labour party lay not with the trade unionists, but with Len McCluskey, leader of Unite, whose behaviour he described as "destructive".
Murphy's resignation took effect on 1 June 2015. While Kezia Dugdale, as Deputy Leader of Scottish Labour, would normally have acted as leader until a permanent leader was elected, former Scottish Labour Leader Iain Gray became acting leader as Dugdale resigned the Deputy Leadership in order to run for the Leadership vacated by Murphy.
Political positions and views
Murphy identifies as a social democrat and has expressed sympathy for democratic socialism but has been described as being on the political right of the Labour Party. He has frequently been referred to as a Blairite but has claimed the term is outdated.
Murphy is on the Political Council of the Henry Jackson Society, whose outlook has been described variously as neoliberal and as neoconservative. The Society is also known for its reports related to Islamic and far-right extremism.</ref> The Society is named after the American politician Henry M. Jackson. As Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, he gave a speech at an HJS event entitled 'A New Model for Intervention: How the UK Responds to Extremism in North and West Africa and Beyond’, arguing for the UK to remain engaged in defence policy beyond its borders, while learning lessons from past experiences.
In January 2015, the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scottish Greens called on Murphy to resign from the Henry Jackson Society. In response the Henry Jackson Society reaffirmed its cross-partisan nature, saying "we believe ... the broadest possible coalition of politicians – of which Jim Murphy is just one of 15 Labour parliamentarians to do so through our political advisory council – should engage with such ideas [of foreign policy]."
Post-parliament career
Following the disastrous results for Scottish Labour at the 2015 general election, Murphy set up a consultancy and became an advisor to the Finnish non-profit Crisis Management Initiative (CMI), advising on "conflict resolution in central Asia".
In November 2016, Murphy took up an employed position as an adviser to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
In August 2018, Murphy paid for a full-page advert in the Jewish Telegraph in which he criticised Jeremy Corbyn for what he claimed was the party's failure to root out Antisemitism. The article, which appeared on page three of the paper under the headline "In sorrow and anger - an apology", accused Corbyn and his top team of being "intellectually arrogant, emotionally inept and politically maladroit".
Personal life
Murphy is married with three children – Cara, Matthew and Daniel. He captained the Parliamentary Football Team. He is a practising Roman Catholic. He is also a vegetarian and a teetotaller. He is the author of The Ten Football Matches That Changed The World...And The One That Didn't.
Murphy was passing near to the Clutha Pub in Stockwell Street in Glasgow on the night of 29 November 2013, shortly after a Police Scotland helicopter crashed onto the roof of the pub, killing 10 people and injuring 31 others. He was later interviewed about the aftermath of the accident.
References
Sources
External links
Profile: Jim Murphy BBC News Online, 17 October 2002
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1967 births
Scottish people of Irish descent
Alumni of the University of Strathclyde
Living people
Chancellors of the Duchy of Lancaster
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Politicians from Cape Town
Politicians from Glasgow
Politics of East Renfrewshire
Presidents of the National Union of Students (United Kingdom)
Scottish Labour MPs
Labour Friends of Israel
Scottish Roman Catholics
Secretaries of State for Scotland
UK MPs 1997–2001
UK MPs 2001–2005
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
Leaders of Scottish Labour |
421709 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation%20of%20Czechoslovakia%20%281938%E2%80%931945%29 | Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945) | The military occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany began with the German annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938, continued with the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and by the end of 1944 extended to all parts of Czechoslovakia.
Following the Anschluss of Austria in March 1938 and the Munich Agreement in September of that same year, Adolf Hitler annexed the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. The loss of the Sudetenland was detrimental to the defense of Czechoslovakia, as the extensive Czechoslovak border fortifications were also located in the same area. As a consequence, the incorporation of the Sudetenland into Germany that began on 1 October 1938 left the rest of Czechoslovakia weak. Moreover, a small northeastern part of the borderland region known as Trans-Olza was occupied and annexed to Poland, ostensibly to "protect" the local ethnic Polish community and as a result of previous territorial claims. Furthermore, by the First Vienna Award, Hungary received the southern territories of Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia, which were largely inhabited by Hungarians.
The Slovak State was proclaimed on 14 March 1939, and Hungary would occupy and annex the remainder of Carpathian Ruthenia the following day. On 15 March, during a visit to Berlin, the Czechoslovak president Emil Hácha was bullied into signing away his country's independence. On 16 March, Hitler proclaimed the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia from Prague Castle, leaving Hácha as the technical head of state with the title of State President. However, he was rendered all but powerless; real power was vested in the Reichsprotektor, who served as Hitler's personal representative.
In March 1944, Hungary was occupied by Germany as part of Operation Margarethe. Slovakia would share the same fate, following the August 1944 Slovak National Uprising. The occupation ended with the surrender of Germany at the end of World War II. During the German occupation, between 294,000 to 320,000 citizens were murdered (with Jews making up the majority of the casualties). Reprisals were especially harsh in the aftermath of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (e.g. the infamous and widely published Lidice massacre). Large numbers of people were drafted for slave labour in Germany.
The economic crisis in Germany
Hitler's interest in Czechoslovakia was largely economic. Germany had the second-largest economy in the world, but German agriculture was not capable of feeding the population, and there was also a lack of many raw materials, which had to be imported. The Four-Year Plan that Hitler had launched in September 1936 to have the German economy ready for a "total war" by 1940 had seriously strained the German economy by 1937 as German government was forced to use up its foreign exchange reserves both to feed its own people and to import various raw materials to achieve the ambitious armament goals of the Four Year Plan. Though the Four Year Plan aimed at autarky, there were certain raw materials such as high-grade iron, oil, chrome, nickel, tungsten, and bauxite that Germany did not have and had to be imported. The need to import food and raw materials made Germany into Europe's second largest importer, being exceeded only by Great Britain. Moreover, hundreds of millions of Reichsmarks were spent on various armament works such as the Reichswerke steel complex, an expensive program to develop synthetic fuel, and various other equally expensive chemical and aluminum programs, all of which strained the German economy. The Great Depression was an era of trade wars and protectionism, which imposed limits on Germany's ability to export and thus earn foreign exchange. Moreover, the Four Year Plan with its aim of autarky led to Germany increasing its tariffs, which led other nations to do likewise in retaliation. The British historian Richard Overy wrote the huge demands of the Four Year Plan "...could not be fully met by a policy of import substitution and industrial rationalization", thus leading Hitler to decide in November 1937 that to stay ahead in the arms race with the other powers that Germany had to seize Czechoslovakia in the near-future.
At the Hossbach conference on 5 November 1937, Hitler announced that seizing Czechoslovakia would increase the supply of food under German control, which in turn would lessen the need to import food, thereby freeing up more foreign exchange to import raw materials necessary for the Four Year Plan's targets. The Hossbach conference was largely taken up with an extended discussion about the necessity of bringing areas adjunct to Germany under German economic control, by force if necessary, as Hitler argued that this was the best way to win the arms race. Hitler stated: "areas producing raw materials can be more usefully sought in Europe, in immediate proximity to the Reich". Overy wrote about Hitler's attitude to the Reich economic problems that: "He simply saw war instrumentally, as the Japanese had done in Manchuria, as a way to expand the German resource base and to secure it against other powers".
At the time, Czechoslovakia had Europe's 7th largest economy and Czechoslovakia had easily the most modern, developed, and industrialized economy in Eastern Europe. The former Austrian provinces of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia that now comprise the modern Czech Republic had been the industrial heartland of the Austrian empire, where the majority of the arms for the Imperial Austrian Army were manufactured, most notably at the Škoda Works. One consequence of this legacy was that Czechoslovakia was the only nation in Eastern Europe besides the Soviet Union that manufactured its own weapons instead of importing them, and Czechoslovakia was the world's 7th largest manufacturer of arms, making Czechoslovakia an important player in the global arms trade.
Demands for Sudeten autonomy
Sudeten German pro-Nazi leader Konrad Henlein offered the Sudeten German Party (SdP) as the agent for Hitler's campaign. Henlein met with Hitler in Berlin on 28 March 1938, where he was instructed to raise demands unacceptable to the Czechoslovak government led by president Edvard Beneš. On 24 April, the SdP issued the Karlsbader Programm, demanding autonomy for the Sudetenland and the freedom to profess National Socialist ideology. If Henlein's demands were granted, the Sudetenland would be an autonomous state aligned with Nazi Germany.
Munich Agreement
As the tepid reaction to the German Anschluss with Austria had shown, the governments of France, the United Kingdom and Czechoslovakia were set on avoiding war at any cost. The French government did not wish to face Germany alone and took its lead from the British government, led by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He contended that Sudeten German grievances were justified and believed that Hitler's intentions were limited. That made Britain and France advise Czechoslovakia to concede to the German demands. Beneš resisted, and on 20 May 1938, a partial mobilisation was under way in response to the possible German invasion. It is suggested that the mobilisation could have been launched on basis of Soviet misinformation about Germany being on verge of invasion, which aimed to trigger war in Western Europe.
On 30 May, Hitler signed a secret directive for war against Czechoslovakia to begin no later than 1 October.
In the meantime, the British government demanded for Beneš to request a mediator. Not wishing to sever his government's ties with Western Europe, Beneš reluctantly accepted. The British appointed Lord Runciman and instructed him to persuade Beneš to agree to a plan acceptable to the Sudeten Germans. On 2 September, Beneš submitted the Fourth Plan, which granted nearly all of the demands of the Karlsbader Programm. Intent on obstructing conciliation, however, the SdP held demonstrations that provoked the police in Ostrava on 7 September. The Sudeten Germans broke off negotiations on 13 September, and violence and disruption ensued. As Czechoslovak troops attempted to restore order, Henlein flew to Germany, and on 15 September, he issued a proclamation demanding the takeover of the Sudetenland by Germany.
The same day, Hitler met with Chamberlain and demanded the swift takeover of the Sudetenland by Nazi Germany under threat of war. Czechoslovakia, Hitler claimed, was slaughtering the Sudeten Germans. Chamberlain referred the demand to the British and French governments, both of which accepted. The Czechoslovak government resisted by arguing that Hitler's proposal would ruin the nation's economy and ultimately lead to German control of all of Czechoslovakia. The United Kingdom and France issued an ultimatum and made a French commitment to Czechoslovakia contingent upon its acceptance. On 21 September, Czechoslovakia capitulated. The next day, however, Hitler added new demands that insisted for the claims of Poland and Hungary to be satisfied as well. Romania was also invited to share in the division of Carpathian Ruthenia but refused because it was an ally of Czechoslovakia (see Little Entente).
The Czechoslovak capitulation precipitated an outburst of national indignation. In demonstrations and rallies, Czechs and Slovaks called for a strong military government to defend the integrity of the state. A new cabinet, under General Jan Syrový, was installed, and on 23 September 1938, a decree of general mobilization was issued. The Czechoslovak Army was modern, had an excellent system of frontier fortifications and was prepared to fight. The Soviet Union announced its willingness to come to Czechoslovakia's assistance. Beneš, however, refused to go to war without the support of the Western powers.
Hitler gave a speech in Berlin on 26 September 1938 and declared that the Sudetenland was "the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe". He also stated that he had told Chamberlain, "I have assured him further that, and this I repeat here before you, once this issue has been resolved, there will no longer be any further territorial problems for Germany in Europe!"
On 28 September, Chamberlain appealed to Hitler for a conference. Hitler met the next day at Munich with the chiefs of governments of France, Italy and Britain. The Czechoslovak government was neither invited nor consulted. On 29 September, the Munich Agreement was signed by Germany, Italy, France and Britain. The Czechoslovak government capitulated on 30 September, despite the army's opposition, and agreed to abide by the agreement, which stipulated that Czechoslovakia must cede Sudetenland to Germany. The German occupation of the Sudetenland would be completed by 10 October. An international commission representing Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Czechoslovakia would supervise a plebiscite to determine the final frontier. Britain and France promised to join in an international guarantee of the new frontiers against unprovoked aggression. Germany and Italy, however, would not join in the guarantee until the Polish and Hungarian minority problems were settled.
On 5 October 1938, Beneš resigned as president since he realised that the fall of Czechoslovakia was a fait accompli. After the outbreak of World War II, he would form a Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London.
First Vienna Award
In early November 1938, under the First Vienna Award, which was a result of the Munich agreement, Czechoslovakia—which had failed to reach a compromise with Hungary and Poland—had to cede after the arbitration of Germany and Italy awarded southern Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia to Hungary, while Poland invaded Trans-Olza territory shortly after.
As a result, Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia lost about 38% of their combined area to Germany, with some 3.2 million German and 750,000 Czech inhabitants. Hungary, in turn, received in southern Slovakia and southern Carpathian Ruthenia; according to a 1941 census, about 86.5% of the population in this territory was Hungarian. Meanwhile, Poland annexed the town of Český Těšín with the surrounding area (some ), some 250,000 inhabitants, Poles making up about 36% of population, and two minor border areas in northern Slovakia, more precisely in the regions Spiš and Orava. (, 4,280 inhabitants, only 0.3% Poles).
Soon after Munich, 115,000 Czechs and 30,000 Germans fled to the remaining rump of Czechoslovakia. According to the Institute for Refugee Assistance, the actual count of refugees on 1 March 1939 stood at almost 150,000.
On 4 December 1938, there were elections in Reichsgau Sudetenland, in which 97.32% of the adult population voted for the National Socialist Party. About 500,000 Sudeten Germans joined the National Socialist Party, which was 17.34% of the German population in Sudetenland (the average National Socialist Party participation in Nazi Germany was 7.85%). This means the Sudetenland was the most pro-Nazi region in Nazi Germany. Because of their knowledge of the Czech language, many Sudeten Germans were employed in the administration of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and in Nazi organizations such as the Gestapo. The most notable was Karl Hermann Frank, the SS and police general and Secretary of State in the Protectorate.
Second Republic (October 1938 to March 1939)
The greatly weakened Czechoslovak Republic was forced to grant major concessions to the non-Czechs. The executive committee of the Slovak People's Party met at Žilina on 5 October 1938, and with the acquiescence of all Slovak parties except the Social Democrats formed an autonomous Slovak government under Jozef Tiso. Similarly, the two major factions in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, the Russophiles and Ukrainophiles, agreed on the establishment of an autonomous government, which was constituted on 8 October. Reflecting the spread of modern Ukrainian national consciousness, the pro-Ukrainian faction, led by Avhustyn Voloshyn, gained control of the local government and Subcarpathian Ruthenia was renamed Carpatho-Ukraine. In 1939, during the occupation, the Nazis banned Russian ballet.
A last-ditch attempt to save Czechoslovakia from total ruin was made by the British and French governments, who on 27 January 1939, concluded an agreement of financial assistance with the Czechoslovak government. In this agreement, the British and French governments undertook to lend the Czechoslovak government £8 million and make a gift of £4 million. Part of the funds were allocated to help resettle Czechs and Slovaks who had fled from territories lost to Germany, Hungary, and Poland in the Munich Agreement or the Vienna Arbitration Award.
In November 1938, Emil Hácha, who succeeded Beneš, was elected president of the federated Second Republic, renamed Czecho-Slovakia and consisting of three parts: Bohemia and Moravia, Slovakia, and Carpatho-Ukraine. Lacking its natural frontier and having lost its costly system of border fortification, the new state was militarily indefensible. Without the natural defensive barrier of the mountains of the Sudetenland, Hácha carried out a foreign policy that was slavishly pro-German as he felt this was the best way to preserve his nation's independence.
In late 1938-early 1939, the continuing economic crisis caused by problems of rearmament, especially the shortage of foreign hard currencies needed to pay for raw materials Germany lacked together with reports from Hermann Göring that the Four Year Plan was hopelessly behind schedule forced Hitler in January 1939 to reluctantly order major defense cuts with the Wehrmacht having its steel allocations cut by 30%, aluminum 47%, cement 25%, rubber 14% and copper 20%. On January 30, 1939, Hitler made his "Export or die!" speech calling for a German economic offensive or "export battle" to use Hitler's term to increase German foreign exchange holdings to pay for raw materials for the Four Year Plan without cutting back on food imports. Hitler's wish to occupy Czechoslovakia was primarily caused by the foreign exchange crisis as Germany had run down its foreign exchange reserves by early 1939, and Germany urgently needed to seize the gold of the Czechoslovak central bank to continue the Four Year Plan. On 8 March 1939, Hitler met with Wilhelm Keppler, the NSDAP's economic expert, where he spoke about his wish to occupy Czecho-Slovakia for economic reasons, saying that Germany needed its raw materials and industries.
Hitler totally ignored the agreements of the Munich Agreement and scheduled a German invasion of Bohemia and Moravia for the morning of 15 March. In the interim, he negotiated with the Slovak People's Party and with Hungary to prepare the dismemberment of the republic before the invasion. On 13 March, he invited Tiso to Berlin and on 14 March, the Slovak Diet convened and unanimously declared Slovak independence. Carpatho-Ukraine also declared independence but Hungarian troops occupied and annexed it on 15 March and a small part of eastern Slovakia as well on 23 March.
14 March
After the secession of Slovakia and Ruthenia, British Ambassador to Czechoslovakia Basil Newton advised President Hácha to meet with Hitler. When Hácha arrived in Berlin on March 14, he met with the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop prior to meeting with Hitler. Von Ribbentrop testified at the Nuremberg trials that during this meeting, Hácha had told him that "he wanted to place the fate of the Czech State in the Führer's hands." Hácha later met with Hitler, where Hitler gave the Czech President two options: cooperate with Germany, in which case the "entry of German troops would take place in a tolerable manner" and "permit Czechoslovakia a generous life of her own, autonomy and a degree of national freedom..." or face a scenario in which "resistance would be broken by force of arms, using all means." Minutes of the conversation noted that for Hácha this was the most difficult decision of his life but believed that in only a few years this decision would be comprehensible and in 50 years would probably be regarded as a blessing. After the negotiations had finished, Hitler told his secretaries, "It is the greatest triumph of my life! I shall enter history as the greatest German of them all."
According to Joachim Fest, Hácha suffered a heart attack induced by Hermann Göring's threat to bomb the capital and by four o'clock he contacted Prague, effectively "signing Czechoslovakia away" to Germany. Göring acknowledged making the threat to the British ambassador to Germany, Nevile Henderson, but said that the threat came as a warning because the Czech government, after already agreeing to German occupation, could not guarantee that the Czech army would not fire on the advancing Germans. Göring, however, does not mention that Hácha had a heart attack because of his threat. French Ambassador Robert Coulondre reported that according to an unnamed, considered a reliable source by Coulondre, by half past four, Hácha was "in a state of total collapse, and kept going only by means of injections."
15–16 March
On the morning of 15 March, German troops entered the remaining Czech parts of Czechoslovakia (Rest-Tschechei in German), meeting practically no resistance (the only instance of organized resistance took place in Místek where an infantry company commanded by Karel Pavlík fought invading German troops). The Hungarian invasion of Carpatho-Ukraine encountered resistance but the Hungarian army quickly crushed it. On 16 March, Hitler went to the Czech lands and from Prague Castle proclaimed the German protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The British historian Victor Rothwell wrote that the Czechoslovak reserves of gold and hard currency seized in March 1939 were "invaluable in staving off Germany's foreign exchange crisis". In addition, the Germans seized all of the factories for making weapons, mines that provided crucial raw materials for the armament program of the Four Year Plan and a "huge weapons haul, including nearly 500 tanks and nearly 1600 aircraft".
Besides violating his promises at Munich, the annexation of the rest of Czechoslovakia was, unlike Hitler's previous actions, not described in Mein Kampf. After having repeatedly stated that he was interested only in pan-Germanism, the unification of ethnic Germans into one Reich, Germany had now conquered seven million Czechs. Hitler's proclamation creating the protectorate on 16 March claimed that "Bohemia and Moravia have for thousands of years belonged to the Lebensraum of the German people". British public opinion changed drastically after the invasion. Chamberlain realised that the Munich Agreement had meant nothing to Hitler. Chamberlain told the British public on 17 March during a speech in Birmingham that Hitler was attempting "to dominate the world by force".
Second World War
The Arsenal of the Reich
Shortly before World War II, Czechoslovakia ceased to exist. Its territory was divided into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the newly declared Slovak State and the short-lived Republic of Carpathian Ukraine. While much of former Czechoslovakia came under the control of Nazi Germany, Hungarian forces (aided by Poland) swiftly overran the Carpathian Ukraine. Poland and Hungary annexed some areas (e.g., Zaolzie, Southern Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia) in the autumn of 1938. The Zaolzie region became part of Nazi Germany after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.
The German economy—burdened by heavy militarisation—urgently needed foreign currency. Setting up an artificially high exchange rate between the Czechoslovak koruna and the Reichsmark brought consumer goods to Germans (and soon created shortages in the Czech lands).
Czechoslovakia had fielded a modern army of 35 divisions and was a major manufacturer of machine guns, tanks, and artillery, most of them assembled in the Škoda factory in Plzeň. Many Czech factories continued to produce Czech designs until converted to German designs. Czechoslovakia also had other major manufacturing companies. Entire steel and chemical factories were moved from Czechoslovakia and reassembled in Linz (which incidentally remains a heavily industrialized area of Austria). In a speech delivered in the Reichstag, Hitler stressed the military importance of occupation, noting that by occupying Czechoslovakia, Germany gained 2,175 field cannons, 469 tanks, 500 anti-aircraft artillery pieces, 43,000 machine guns, 1,090,000 military rifles, 114,000 pistols, about a billion rounds of ammunition and three million anti-aircraft shells. This amount of weaponry would be sufficient to arm about half of the then Wehrmacht.
Czechoslovak weaponry later played a major part in the German conquests of Poland (1939) and France (1940).
Heydrich during his time as Reichsprotektor brought about increases in rations for workers in the armaments industry, improved welfare services, free shoes and for a short time, a five-day work week as Saturday was made a holiday. The National Union of Employees was remolded in the style of the Nazi pseudo-union, the German Labor Front, to provide free sports events, films, concerts and plays for the workers. Heydrich sought to portray himself as the friend of the Czech working class, even meeting a group of selected Czech workers on 24 October 1941 in a photo-op to show his supposed concern for the Czech workers. Heydrich cynically called his policy "optical effects" as he believed that mere gestures such as free showings of films at the local cinemas and free sports matches could win the support of the working class and increase productivity in the war industries. However, inflation was rampant and wage increases failed to keep up with the cost of living, causing the workers to frequently grumble about their conditions.
Czechoslovak resistance
Beneš—the leader of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile—and František Moravec—head of Czechoslovak military intelligence—organized and coordinated a resistance network. Hácha, Prime Minister Alois Eliáš, and the Czechoslovak resistance acknowledged Beneš's leadership. Active collaboration between London and the Czechoslovak home front was maintained throughout the war years. The most important event of the resistance was Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, SS leader Heinrich Himmler's deputy and the then Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. Infuriated, Hitler ordered the arrest and execution of 10,000 randomly selected Czechs. Over 10,000 were arrested, and at least 1,300 were executed. According to one estimate, 5,000 were killed in reprisals. The assassination resulted in one of the most well-known reprisals of the war. The Nazis completely destroyed the villages of Lidice and Ležáky; all men over 16 years from the village were murdered, and the rest of the population was sent to Nazi concentration camps where many women and nearly all the children were killed.
The Czechoslovak resistance comprised four main groups:
The army command coordinated with a multitude of spontaneous groupings to form the Defense of the Nation (Obrana národa, ON) with branches in Britain and France. Czechoslovak units and formations with Czechs (c. 65–70%), and Slovaks (c. 30%) served with the Polish Army (Czechoslovak Legion), the French Army, the Royal Air Force, the British Army (the 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade), and the Red Army (I Czechoslovak Corps). Two thousand eighty-eight Czechs and 401 Slovaks fought in 11th Infantry Battalion-East alongside the British during the war in areas such as North Africa and Palestine. Among others, Czech fighter pilot, Sergeant Josef František was one of the most successful fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain.
Beneš's collaborators, led by , created the Political Center (Politické ústředí, PÚ). The PÚ was nearly destroyed by arrests in November 1939, after which younger politicians took control.
Social democrats and leftist intellectuals, in association with such groups as trade unions and educational institutions, constituted the Committee of the Petition that We Remain Faithful (Petiční výbor Věrni zůstaneme, PVVZ).
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) was the fourth major resistance group. The KSČ had been one of over 20 political parties in the democratic First Republic, but it had never gained sufficient votes to unsettle the democratic government. After the Munich Agreement, the leadership of the KSČ moved to Moscow and the party went underground. Until 1943, however, KSČ resistance was weak. The 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, a non-aggression agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, had left the KSČ in disarray. But ever faithful to the Soviet line, the KSČ began a more active struggle against the Germans after Operation Barbarossa, Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941.
The democratic groups—ON, PÚ, and PVVZ—united in early 1940 and formed the Central Committee of the Home Resistance (Ústřední výbor odboje domácího, ÚVOD). Involved primarily in intelligence gathering, the ÚVOD cooperated with a Soviet intelligence organization in Prague. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the democratic groups attempted to create a united front that would include the KSČ. Heydrich's appointment in the fall thwarted these efforts. By mid-1942, the Germans had succeeded in exterminating the most experienced elements of the Czechoslovak resistance forces.
Czechoslovak forces regrouped in 1942–1943. The Council of the Three (R3)—in which the communist underground was also represented—emerged as the focal point of the resistance. The R3 prepared to assist the liberating armies of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In cooperation with Red Army partisan units, the R3 developed a guerrilla structure.
Guerrilla activity intensified with a rising number of parachuted units in 1944, leading to the establishment of partisan groups such as 1st Czechoslovak Partisan Brigade of Jan Žižka, Jan Kozina Brigade or Master Jan Hus Brigade, and especially after the formation of a provisional Czechoslovak government in Košice on 4 April 1945. "National committees" took over the administration of towns as the Germans were expelled. More than 4,850 such committees were formed between 1944 and the end of the war under the supervision of the Red Army. On 5 May, a national uprising began spontaneously in Prague, and the newly formed Czech National Council (cs) almost immediately assumed leadership of the revolt. Over 1,600 barricades were erected throughout the city, and some 30,000 Czech men and women battled for three days against 40,000 German troops backed by tanks, aircraft and artillery. On 8 May, the German Wehrmacht capitulated; Soviet troops arrived on 9 May.
German policy
There are sources that highlighted the more favorable treatment of the Czechs during the German occupation in comparison to the treatment of the Poles and the Ukrainians. This is attributed to the view within the Nazi hierarchy that a large swath of the populace was "capable of Aryanization," hence, the Czechs were not subjected to a similar degree of random and organized acts of brutality that their Polish counterparts experienced. Such capacity for Aryanization was supported by the position that part of the Czech population had German ancestry. On the other hand, the Czechs/Slavs were not considered by the Germans as a racial equal due to its classification as a mixture of races with Jewish and Asiatic influences. This was illustrated in a series of discussion, which denigrated it as less valuable and, specifically, the Czechs as "dangerous and must be handled differently from Aryan peoples."
A paradox of German policy was that the collaborators such as Hácha were held in contempt by the Nazis as "riff raft" while those who clung most defiantly to their sense of Czech identity were considered to be the better subjects of Germanizaton. Heydrich in a report to Berlin stated that Hácha was "incapable of Germaninzation" as "he is always sick, arrives with a trembling voice and attempts to evoke pity that demands our mercy". By contrast, Heydrich had a grudging respect for Elias, noting that he was youthful, healthy, and a determined defender of Czech interests, which led Heydrich to conclude that he must have some German blood.
Aside from the inconsistency of animosity towards Slavs, there is also the fact that the forceful but restrained policy in Czechoslovakia was partly driven by the need to keep the population nourished and complacent so that it can carry out the vital work of arms production in the factories. By 1939, the country was already serving as a major hub of military production for Germany, manufacturing aircraft, tanks, artillery, and other armaments.
Slovak National Uprising
The Slovak National Uprising ("1944 Uprising") was an armed struggle between German Wehrmacht forces and rebel Slovak troops August–October 1944. It was centered at Banská Bystrica.
The rebel Slovak Army, formed to fight the Germans, had an estimated 18,000 soldiers in August, a total which first increased to 47,000 after mobilisation on 9 September 1944, and later to 60,000, plus 20,000 partisans. However, in late August, German troops were able to disarm the Eastern Slovak Army, which was the best equipped, and thus significantly decreased the power of the Slovak Army. Many members of this force were sent to Nazi concentration camps; others escaped and joined partisan units.
The Slovaks were aided in the Uprising by soldiers and partisans from the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, US, France, the Czech Republic, and Poland. In total, 32 nations were involved in the Uprising.
Czechoslovak government-in-exile
Edvard Beneš resigned as president of the First Czechoslovak Republic on 5 October 1938 after the Nazi coup. In London, he and other Czechoslovak exiles organized a Czechoslovak government-in-exile and negotiated to obtain international recognition for the government and a renunciation of the Munich Agreement and its consequences. After World War II broke out, a Czechoslovak national committee was constituted in France, and under Beneš's presidency sought international recognition as the exiled government of Czechoslovakia. This attempt led to some minor successes, such as the French-Czechoslovak treaty of 2 October 1939, which allowed for the reconstitution of the Czechoslovak army on French territory, yet full recognition was not reached. The Czechoslovak army in France was established on 24 January 1940, and units of its 1st Infantry Division took part in the last stages of the Battle of France, as did some Czechoslovak fighter pilots in various French fighter squadrons.
Beneš hoped for a restoration of the Czechoslovak state in its pre-Munich form after the anticipated Allied victory, a false hope. The government in exile—with Beneš as president of republic—was set up in June 1940 in exile in London, with the President living at Aston Abbotts. On 18 July 1940, it was recognised by the British government. Belatedly, the Soviet Union (in the summer of 1941) and the U.S. (in the winter) recognised the exiled government. In 1942, Allied repudiation of the Munich Agreement established the political and legal continuity of the First Republic and de jure recognition of Beneš's de facto presidency. The success of Operation Anthropoid—which resulted in the British-backed assassination of one of Hitler's top henchmen, Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich, by Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš on 27 May—influenced the Allies in this repudiation.
The Munich Agreement had been precipitated by the subversive activities of the Sudeten Germans. During the latter years of the war, Beneš worked toward resolving the German minority problem and received consent from the Allies for a solution based on a postwar transfer of the Sudeten German population. The First Republic had been committed to a Western policy in foreign affairs. The Munich Agreement was the outcome. Beneš determined to strengthen Czechoslovak security against future German aggression through alliances with Poland and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union, however, objected to a tripartite Czechoslovak-Polish-Soviet commitment. In December 1943, Beneš's government concluded a treaty just with the Soviets.
Beneš's interest in maintaining friendly relations with the Soviet Union was motivated also by his desire to avoid Soviet encouragement of a post-war communist coup in Czechoslovakia. Beneš worked to bring Czechoslovak communist exiles in Britain into cooperation with his government, offering far-reaching concessions, including the nationalization of heavy industry and the creation of local people's committees at the war's end. In March 1945, he gave key cabinet positions to Czechoslovak communist exiles in Moscow.
Especially after the German reprisals for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, most of the Czech resistance groups demanded, with eerie irony and based on Nazi terror during the occupation, ethnic cleansing or the "final solution of the German question" () which would have to be "solved" by deportation of the ethnic Germans from their homeland. These reprisals included massacres in villages Lidice and Ležáky, although these villages were not connected with Czech resistance.
These demands were adopted by the government-in-exile, which sought the support of the Allies for this proposal, beginning in 1943. During the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the Government-in-Exile promulgated a series of laws that are now referred to as the "Beneš decrees". One part of these decrees dealt with the status of ethnic Germans and Hungarians in postwar Czechoslovakia, and laid the ground for the deportation of some 3,000,000 Germans and Hungarians from the land that had been their home for centuries (see expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia, and Hungarians in Slovakia). The Beneš decrees declared that German property was to be confiscated without compensation. However, the final agreement authorizing the forced population transfer of the Germans was not reached until 2 August 1945 at the end of the Potsdam Conference.
End of the war
Liberation of Czechoslovakia
On 8 May 1944, Beneš signed an agreement with Soviet leaders stipulating that "Czechoslovak territory liberated by Soviet armies" would be placed under Czechoslovak civilian control.
On 21 September, Czechoslovak troops formed in the Soviet-liberated village, Kalinov, which was the first liberated settlement of Slovakia, located near the Dukla Pass in northeastern part of the country. Slovakia and the Czech lands were occupied mostly by Soviet troops (the Red Army), supported by Czech and Slovak resistance, from the east to the west; only southwestern Bohemia was liberated by other Allied troops from the west. Even at the end of the war, German troops massacred Czech civilians; the Massacre in Trhová Kamenice and the Massacre at Javoříčko are examples of this.
A provisional Czechoslovak government was established by the Soviets in the eastern Slovak city of Košice on 4 April 1945. "National committees" (supervised by the Red Army) took over the administration of towns as the Germans were expelled. Bratislava was taken by the Soviets on 4 April.
On 5 May 1945, in the last moments of the war in Europe, the Prague uprising (Czech: Pražské povstání) began. It was an attempt by the Czech resistance to liberate the city of Prague from German occupation during World War II. The uprising went on until 8 May 1945, ending in a ceasefire the day before the arrival of the Red Army and one day after Victory in Europe Day.
Prague was taken on 9 May by Soviet troops during the Prague Offensive which had begun on 6 May and ended by 11 May. When the Soviets arrived, Prague was already in a general state of confusion due to the Prague Uprising. Soviet and other Allied troops were withdrawn from Czechoslovakia in the same year.
It is estimated that about 345,000 World War II casualties were from Czechoslovakia, 277,000 of them Jews. As many as 144,000 Soviet troops died during the liberation of Czechoslovakia.
Annexation of Subcarpathian Ruthenia by the Soviet Union
In October 1944, Subcarpathian Ruthenia was taken by the Soviets. A Czechoslovak delegation under František Němec was dispatched to the area. The delegation was to mobilize the liberated local population to form a Czechoslovak army and to prepare for elections in cooperation with recently established national committees. Loyalty to a Czechoslovak state was tenuous in Carpathian Ruthenia. Beneš's proclamation of April 1944 excluded former collaborationist Hungarians, Germans and the Rusynophile Ruthenian followers of Andrej Bródy and the Fencik Party (who had collaborated with the Hungarians) from political participation. This amounted to approximately ⅓ of the population. Another ⅓ was communist, leaving ⅓ of the population presumably sympathetic to the Czechoslovak Republic.
Upon arrival in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, the Czechoslovak delegation set up headquarters in Khust, and on 30 October issued a mobilization proclamation. Soviet military forces prevented both the printing and the posting of the Czechoslovak proclamation and proceeded instead to organize the local population. Protests from Beneš's government were ignored. Soviet activities led much of the local population to believe that Soviet annexation was imminent. The Czechoslovak delegation was also prevented from establishing a cooperative relationship with the local national committees promoted by the Soviets. On 19 November, the communists—meeting in Mukachevo—issued a resolution requesting separation of Subcarpathian Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia and incorporation into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. On 26 November, the Congress of National Committees unanimously accepted the resolution of the communists. The congress elected the National Council and instructed that a delegation be sent to Moscow to discuss union. The Czechoslovak delegation was asked to leave Subcarpathian Ruthenia. Negotiations between the Czechoslovak government and Moscow ensued. Both Czech and Slovak communists encouraged Beneš to cede Subcarpathian Ruthenia. The Soviet Union agreed to postpone annexation until the postwar period to avoid compromising Beneš's policy based on the pre-Munich frontiers.
The treaty ceding Carpathian Ruthenia to the Soviet Union was signed in June 1945. Czechs and Slovaks living in Subcarpathian Ruthenia and Ruthenians (Rusyns) living in Czechoslovakia were given the choice of Czechoslovak or Soviet citizenship.
Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia
In May 1945, Czechoslovak troops took possession of the borderland. A Czechoslovak administrative commission composed exclusively of Czechs was established. Sudeten Germans were subjected to restrictive measures and conscripted for compulsory labor. On 15 June, however, Beneš called Czechoslovak authorities to order. In July, Czechoslovak representatives addressed the Potsdam Conference (the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union) and presented plans for a "humane and orderly transfer" of the Sudeten German population. There were substantial exceptions from expulsions that applied to about 244,000 ethnic Germans who were allowed to remain in Czechoslovakia.
The following groups of ethnic Germans were not deported:
anti-fascists
persons crucial for industries
those married to ethnic Czechs
It is estimated that between 700,000 and 800,000 Germans were affected by "wild" expulsions between May and August 1945. The expulsions were encouraged by Czechoslovak politicians and were generally carried out by the order of local authorities, mostly by groups of armed volunteers. However, in some cases it was initiated or pursued by assistance of the regular army.
The expulsion according to the Potsdam Conference proceeded from 25 January 1946 until October of that year. An estimated 1.6 million ethnic Germans were deported to the American zone of what would become West Germany. An estimated 800,000 were deported to the Soviet zone (in what would become East Germany). Several thousand died violently during the expulsion and many more died from hunger and illness as a consequence. These casualties include violent deaths and suicides, deaths in internment camps and natural causes. The joint Czech-German commission of historians stated in 1996 the following numbers: The deaths caused by violence and abnormal living conditions amount to approximately 10,000 persons killed. Another 5,000–6,000 people died of unspecified reasons related to expulsion making the total number of victims of the expulsion 15,000–16,000 (this excludes suicides, which make another approximately 3,400 cases).
Approximately 225,000 Germans remained in Czechoslovakia, of whom 50,000 emigrated or were expelled soon after.
See also
Fall Grün, the German invasion plan for Czechoslovakia rendered obsolete by the Munich Agreement
Lety concentration camp
Hodonin concentration camp
International Students' Day
Czechoslovak border fortifications – built 1935–1938 against Germany
Battle of Czajánek's barracks
Karel Pavlík
Western betrayal
References
Sources
Further reading
External links
Hitler's directive for "Operation Green"
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421730 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric%20Pickles | Eric Pickles | Eric Jack Pickles, Baron Pickles, (born 20 April 1952) is a British Conservative Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Brentwood and Ongar from 1992 to 2017. He served in David Cameron's Cabinet as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government from 2010 to 2015. He previously served as Chairman of the Conservative Party from 2009 to 2010 and was later the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion from 2015 to 2017.
Pickles is the UK Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust issues, being appointed in 2015. He stood down as an MP at the 2017 general election, but has continued in his role as Special Envoy under Prime Ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. He is currently the chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel in the House of Lords.
Early life
Eric Jack Pickles was born on 20 April 1952, the son of Jack and Constance Pickles. Born in Keighley, West Riding of Yorkshire, he attended Greenhead Grammar School (now Carlton Keighley) and then studied at Leeds Polytechnic. He was born into a Labour-supporting family – his great-grandfather was one of the founders of the Independent Labour Party, and Pickles described himself as "massively inclined" towards communism as a boy.
Young Conservatives
After the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, he joined the local Keighley Branch of the Young Conservatives in 1968, later commenting "I joined because of the invasion of Czechoslovakia. I was so shocked by the tanks. It was not the best way of fighting Brezhnev, but it made me feel better".
Pickles soon became the chairman of the local Young Conservatives association. During his time in the Young Conservatives he became a member of the Joint Committee Against Racism from 1982 to 1987 and later became its chairman.
His period as national Young Conservative chairman saw growing factionalism with challenges from a southern-based right wing to Pickles' moderate leadership. Pickles also moved against right-wingers in Bradford, expelling the Young Conservative, Yorkshire Chairman of the Monday Club who had stood for the Bradford Wyke Ward on an anti-immigrant platform from the Bradford area constituencies.
Bradford councillor
Pickles was first elected to Bradford Council in 1979, representing the Worth Valley ward. From 1982 to 1984, he chaired that Council's Social Services Committee, and then, from 1984 to 1986, he chaired the Education Committee. Between 1988 and 1990, he served as leader of the Conservative group on the council. In September 1988 the Conservative Party gained control by using the Conservative mayor's casting vote to become the only inner-city council to be controlled by the Conservatives.
When Bradford Council was hung, Pickles opted to break the agreement that the position of Lord Mayor is rotated between the parties, when he put a Conservative mayor in place again. This effectively gave the Conservatives a majority due to the Lord Mayor's casting vote. To do this, they also broke the tradition that the Lord Mayor kept the status quo.
Whilst at Bradford, Pickles announced a five-year plan to cut the council's budget by £50m, reduce the workforce by a third, privatise services and undertake council departmental restructures, many of which proved controversial. A book, The Pickles Papers, by Tony Grogan, was written about this period in Pickles' life.
Parliamentary career
Pickles was elected as Member of Parliament for Brentwood and Ongar in 1992.
At the 2001 general election, the independent politician Martin Bell, who had been the MP for Tatton, having run a campaign of "anti-sleaze", stood against Pickles, due to accusations that the Peniel Pentecostal Church had infiltrated the local Conservative branch. Pickles's vote was reduced from 45.4% to 38%, but he retained his seat by a margin of 2,821 votes (6.5%) becoming elected with 38% of the votes against Bell's 31.5%.
Pickles served as Shadow Minister for Transport and Shadow Minister for London from September 2001 to June 2002, then as Shadow Minister for Local Government from June 2002.
At the 2005 general election Pickles held his seat with 53.5% of the votes and an increased majority of 11,612 (26.3%), nearly as many as the number of votes for the second-placed candidate, making this the second-safest Conservative seat in Eastern England, with Pickles taking the third-highest share of the vote cast in the region.
On 2 July 2007, David Cameron appointed Pickles to a reshuffled Shadow Cabinet as shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. On 30 December 2008, according to reports in The Times, Pickles unveiled plans to "purge town hall 'fat cats'". The Times reported that under the plans "dozens of council chiefs who earn more than Cabinet ministers would lose their jobs as clusters of councils merged their frontline services and backroom operations to provide better value for money." Of the eight highest-earning chief executives listed in The Times report, six were employed by councils run by the Conservative party, one by Labour and one by the Liberal Democrats.
Pickles was the campaign manager for the successful Crewe and Nantwich by-election in May 2008. Following this, he was promoted to Chairman of the Conservative Party, a post he held from January 2009 to May 2010.
In early 2010, Prime Minister Gordon Brown outlined plans to reform the voting system in the United Kingdom. Pickles defended the first-past-the-post system as resulting in stable government and attacked Brown, claiming he "now wants to fiddle the electoral system" by wanting to change the voting system.
Pickles was the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in the coalition government headed by Prime Minister David Cameron from 12 May 2010 to May 2015.
Although a former Eurosceptic, in January 2016 Pickles became a founding member of the group Conservatives For Reform In Europe, a campaign to remain in the European Union on the basis that the EU would be reformed by the negotiations then being led by Prime Minister David Cameron.
In April 2017, Pickles announced he would not stand at the general election the following month. Later that year, he was appointed chairman of the journal Parliamentary Review.
Speaking live to GB News on 4 October 2022, Pickles stated that he had attended his 52nd consecutive Conservative Party Annual Conference that year.
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
Pickles was appointed as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government as part of David Cameron's new coalition Government on 12 May 2010, and sworn as a Privy Counsellor on 13 May 2010.
In his role as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on 30 July 2010, Pickles announced plans to hand powers where ministers can cap what they deem to be unreasonable increases in council taxes to local people. A consultation began in August 2010 and the powers, which will require legislation, should be in force by March 2012. Pickles said he was determined to reverse the presumption that Whitehall knows best by making local councils directly accountable to the local taxpayer. He said: "If councils want to increase council tax further, they will have to prove the case to the electorate. Let the people decide". Residents would be asked to choose between accepting the rise or rejecting it and instead accepting a below inflation rise, but with reduced council services. The average council tax on a Band D property increased from £688 a year in 1997/98 to £1,439 for 2010.
In August 2010 Pickles unexpectedly announced the closure of the Audit Commission for England and Wales. The commission had overseen the appointment of independent external auditors for local authorities, and supported audit work to ensure value for money and the certification of Councils' financial accounts. Closure took until March 2015. Commentators questioned whether Whitehall would struggle to check whether council services and finances were about to fall over, particularly when money was channelled through public / private companies. In the aftermath of a series of major financial crises at local authorities such as Woking Borough Council and Thurrock, identified from 2021, senior figures in local government finance identified the critical need to reinstate functions formerly discharged by the Audit Commission and for a strong system leader to oversee councils and local audit.
Pickles is a figure who does not shun controversy. In The Observer, Will Hutton appraised his role with regard to local government as follows: "Local government minister Eric Pickles has colluded cheerfully with George Osborne to knock local government back to being no more than rat catchers and managers of street lighting. Indeed, they scarcely give them the funds to carry out these activities".
In December 2014, asked in Parliament if people who left their wheelie bins in the street after a collection should be punished, he said they should be flogged -though he also said flogging was too good for them and that leaving the bin in the middle of the road was poor behaviour.
The Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal was unearthed during Pickles' tenure, and in February 2015 he announced a strategy to implement commissioners at Rotherham Council in the wake of the Casey Report, which had been commissioned in 2014 to investigate child sex abuse in Rotherham. Seven councillors resigned as a result of the damning report, which revealed that the local authority was "wholly dysfunctional" and that the failure to protect 1,400 girls from sexual abuse was a result of "complacency, institutionalised political correctness" and "blatant failures of political and officer leadership".
Localism Act
Pickles was responsible for the Localism Act 2011 that changed the powers of local government in England. The measures affected by the Act include more elected mayors and referendums. The Localism Act opens with Part 1, Chapter 1(1), under the heading "Local authority's general power of competence", "A local council has power to do anything that individuals generally may do".
The bill was introduced by Pickles, and given its first reading on 13 December 2010. The Bill completed the third reading in the House of Lords on 31 October 2011. The bill received royal assent on 15 November 2011.
The bill was quickly undermined, however, after it was published on 13 December. One of the claims made for it is that it would "give local communities real control over housing and planning decisions", but on the same day, Pickles issued a decision in a planning appeal. The National Grid had applied to Tewkesbury Borough Council to build a gas plant just outside Tirley in Gloucestershire. The installation would occupy more than 16 acres and the application had been opposed by more than 1,000 residents in a sparsely populated rural area, by 12 parish councils and by every member of the planning committee of the local planning authority. Rejecting the local opposition, Pickles chose to grant permission to build the gas plant.
In April 2014, South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon welcomed the decision that Pickles and the DCLG would have final say over the building of wind turbines. By June 2014, Pickles had intervened on 12 windfarm projects and rejected 10 of them, against the recommendations from planning inspectors, rising to 50 rejections by October 2014.
Council prayers
On 10 February 2012, the National Secular Society obtained a High Court judicial review of the Christian prayers held during meetings in council chambers, which non-Christian councillors were forced to attend as prayers formed part of the formal agenda and councillors are obliged to attend for the duration of the formal agenda.
Mr Justice Ouseley ruled: "The saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a Council is not lawful under s. 111 of the Local Government Act 1972, and there is no statutory power permitting the practice to continue. I do not think the 1972 Act should be interpreted as permitting the religious views of one group of councillors, however sincere or large in number, to exclude, or even to a modest extent, to impose burdens on or even to mark out those who do not share their views and do not wish to participate in their expression of them. They are all equally elected councillors".
Although Mr Justice Ouseley said prayers were permitted to be held before the start of the formal agenda, Eric Pickles vowed to reverse the High Court decision, despite a recent Yougov poll showing 55% were against councils holding prayers with just 26% in favour. Eric Pickles brought forward his Localism Act, due to become law in April 2012, and made it law on 17 February 2012 claiming he is 'effectively reversing' the High Court decision.
Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, commented "A number of senior lawyers have expressed doubt whether the Localism Act will, as Mr Pickles hopes, make prayers lawful, and the Act was clearly not passed with that express intention. His powers to pass legislation are not, as he implies, untrammelled. Council prayers increasingly look set to become a battle between the Government and the courts at ever higher levels". The Localism Act permits local government councils to do anything that is not forbidden. Eric Pickles has written to all local government councils encouraging them to continue with prayers in council meetings. In April 2013, referring to the issue of prayers in council meetings, Pickles said in a speech at the Conservative Spring Forum that "militant atheists" should accept that Britain is a Christian country.
Troubled Families
Pickles led the Troubled Families Programme designed to turn around 120,000 dysfunctional families responsible, at a cost of around £400 million. According to David Cameron, these families were responsible for 'a large proportion of the problems in society'. The families were selected for having 5 of 7 measures of social and economic deprivation. Pickles claimed repeatedly that these families cost the state £9 billion per annum. In March 2015 Pickles declared the programme a 'triumph' in the House of Commons after it allegedly 'turned around' 105,600 families of 117,910 processed and saved £1.2 billion per annum. £1.2 billion per annum was a hypothetical number based on assumptions that alleged improvements in behaviour would be sustained and depended on removing the high costs associated with disabled children and chronically sick, unemployed adults.
The Evaluation by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research was published on 17 October 2016. The report found that there had been "no significant impact" of the scheme. A press release from NIESR stated, "we were unable to find consistent evidence that the programme had any significant or systematic impact". The Times reported the following day, "the report was published quietly last night after complaints from Whitehall insiders that it was being suppressed".
The Public Accounts Committee published its report on 19 December 2016. They concluded that the delay in publication had been unacceptable, that DCLG had failed to demonstrate that the programme had any significant impact and that the terminology of saying that the families had been "turned around" was misleading given that many of the families had continuing problems after a result had been claimed. The PAC chairwoman, Meg Hillier, commented that the report was "far more serious" than "a slap on the wrist" for ministers.
Flooding of the Somerset Levels
From December 2013 onwards the Somerset Levels suffered severe flooding as part of the wider 2013-2014 Atlantic winter storms in Europe and subsequent 2013–2014 United Kingdom winter floods.
There were public calls for the rivers Parrett and Tone, in particular, to be dredged. The Environment Agency was blamed for not having dredged the major river channels of the Levels. The Environment Agency and others pointed out that it would be more effective to spend money on delaying floodwaters upstream, and that increasing the capacity of rivers by dredging would be of no significant use; the Environment Secretary defended the Agency. Roger Falconer, Professor of Water Management at Cardiff University, and other hydrologists made clear that dredging did not offer a useful solution to flooding on the Somerset Levels.
On 7 February, the Environment Secretary needed an urgent operation and handed over the flood management to Eric Pickles. Pickles then appeared on The Andrew Marr Show and apologised "unreservedly" for not dredging the Somerset Levels and said that "the government may have relied too much on the advice" of the Environment Agency. The head of the Environment Agency Lord Chris Smith rejected the criticism of his organisation. The Environment Secretary protested in the strongest possible terms to the Prime Minister about Pickles' "grandstanding".
Flags
Pickles is a self-proclaimed flag enthusiast, and took a personal interest in ensuring that English county flags be regularly flown from the Department for Communities and Local Government. He has urged people to fly the St George Cross of England more widely for St. George's Day and encouraged public bodies to adopt a common-sense approach to flying the flag. On 14 May 2011, at the Flag Institute spring meeting, Pickles announced a consultation aimed at "Making it easier for people to celebrate an identity or an organisation that means something to them".
Second home
On 26 March 2009, Pickles appeared on the political debate programme Question Time in Newcastle. While discussing the controversy over Tony McNulty (who had recently admitted claiming expenses on a second home, occupied by his parents, only 8 miles away from his primary residence), Pickles admitted he claimed a second home allowance because he lived 37 miles from Westminster and needed to leave his constituency house in Brentwood at 5.30 am to get to Westminster for 9.30 am, given that he tended to get home at midnight or 1 am, although the standard time for commuters from this region is usually ninety minutes. He went on to say that it was "no fun" commuting into London from where he lived. In response to Pickles's comments that he "had to be there [the House of Commons] on time", Question Time host David Dimbleby, replied "Like a job, in other words?" and fellow panellist Caroline Lucas added 'welcome to the real world', both of which prompted amusement and applause amongst the audience.
Pickles was asked to pay back £300 following the MP's expenses scandal, which he had claimed for cleaning.
Grenfell Tower Inquiry controversy
On 7 April 2022, Pickles was giving evidence to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry based on his experience as Secretary of State for Housing from 2010 to 2015. He went on to challenge the inquiry not to waste his time while giving evidence, before getting the death toll from the disaster wrong. He later apologised, claiming he "misspoke".
Personal life
Pickles married Irene Coates in 1976 in Staincliffe, a district of Batley in West Yorkshire.
Honours
Eric Pickles was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council in 2010. This gave him the Honorific Prefix "The Right Honorable" and after Ennoblement the Post Nominal Letters "PC" for Life.
On 22 May 2015 it was announced that Pickles was to be appointed a Knight Bachelor.
He was nominated for a Life Peerage by Theresa May on 18 May 2018. On 18 June 2018 he was created Baron Pickles''', of Brentwood and Ongar in the County of Essex. He sits on the Conservative Party benches in the House of Lords.
Styles
Eric Pickles (1952–1992)
Eric Pickles MP (1992–2010)
The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP (2010–2015)
The Rt Hon Sir Eric Pickles MP (2015–2017)
The Rt Hon Sir Eric Pickles (2017–2018)
The Rt Hon The Lord Pickles Kt PC (2018–present)
Notes
References
Sources
(free electronic edition, October 1996).
External links
Eric Pickles MP official constituency website Eric Pickles parliamentary activity from TheyWorkForYou
Contributor page at The Guardian''
(free electronic edition, October 1996).
Eric Pickles news at publicservice.co.uk
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1952 births
Borough of Brentwood
Chairmen of the Conservative Party (UK)
Conservative Party (UK) councillors
Conservative Party (UK) life peers
Life peers created by Elizabeth II
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Councillors in Bradford
Former Marxists
Living people
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Knights Bachelor
Alumni of Leeds Beckett University
People from Keighley
UK MPs 1992–1997
UK MPs 1997–2001
UK MPs 2001–2005
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017 |
421739 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History%20of%20Czechoslovakia%20%281948%E2%80%931989%29 | History of Czechoslovakia (1948–1989) | From the Communist coup d'état in February 1948 to the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Czechoslovakia was ruled by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (, KSČ). The country belonged to the Eastern Bloc and was a member of the Warsaw Pact and of Comecon. During the era of Communist Party rule, thousands of Czechoslovaks faced political persecution for various offences, such as trying to emigrate across the Iron Curtain.
The 1993 Act on Lawlessness of the Communist Regime and on Resistance Against It determined that the communist government was illegal and that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was a criminal organisation.
Stalinization
On 25 February 1948, President Edvard Beneš gave in to the demands of Communist Prime Minister Klement Gottwald and appointed a Cabinet dominated by Communists. While it was nominally still a coalition, the "non-Communists" in the cabinet were mostly fellow travelers. This gave legal sanction to the KSČ coup, and marked the onset of undisguised Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. On 9 May, the National Assembly, purged of dissidents, passed a new constitution. It was not a completely Communist document; since a special committee prepared it in the 1945–48 period, it contained many liberal and democratic provisions. It reflected, however, the reality of Communist power through an addition that declared Czechoslovakia a people's republic – a preliminary step towards socialism and, ultimately, communism – ruled by the dictatorship of the proletariat, and also gave the Communist Party the leading role in the state. For these reasons, Beneš refused to sign the so-called Ninth-of-May Constitution. Nevertheless, elections were held on 30 May, and voters were presented with a single list from the National Front, the former governing coalition which was now a broad patriotic organisation under Communist control. Beneš resigned on 2 June, and Gottwald became president twelve days later.
Within the next few years, bureaucratic centralism under the direction of KSČ leadership was introduced. So-called "dissident" elements were purged from all levels of society, including the Catholic Church. The ideological principles of Marxism-Leninism and pervaded cultural and intellectual life. The entire education system was submitted to state control. With the elimination of private ownership of means of production, a planned economy was introduced. Czechoslovakia became a satellite state of the Soviet Union; it was a founding member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) in 1949 and of the Warsaw Pact in 1955. The attainment of Soviet-style "socialism" became the government's avowed policy.
Although in theory Czechoslovakia remained a multi-party state, in reality the Communists had complete control of the country. Political participation became subject to KSČ approval. The KSČ also prescribed percentage representation for non-Marxist parties. The National Assembly, purged of dissidents, became a mere rubber stamp for KSČ programmes. In 1953, an inner cabinet of the National Assembly, the Presidium, was created. Composed of KSČ leaders, the Presidium served to convey party policies through government channels. Regional, district, and local committees were subordinated to the Ministry of Interior. Slovak autonomy was constrained; the KSS was reunited with the KSČ but retained its own identity.
After consolidating power, Klement Gottwald began a series of mass purges against both political opponents and fellow Communists, numbering in the tens of thousands. Children from blacklisted families were denied access to good jobs and higher education, there was widespread emigration to West Germany and Austria, and the educational system was reformed to give opportunities to working-class students.
Although Gottwald originally sought a more independent line, a quick meeting with Stalin in 1948 convinced him otherwise and so he sought to impose the Soviet model on the country as thoroughly as possible. By 1951, Gottwald's health deteriorated and he was suffering from heart disease and syphilis in addition to alcoholism. He made few public appearances in his final year of life.
Gottwald died on 14 March 1953 from an aortic aneurysm, a week after attending Stalin's funeral in Moscow. He was succeeded by Antonín Zápotocký as President and by Antonín Novotný as head of the KSČ. Novotný became President in 1957 when Zápotocký died.
Czechoslovak interests were subordinated to the interests of the Soviet Union. Joseph Stalin became particularly concerned about controlling and integrating the socialist bloc in the wake of Tito's challenge to his authority. Stalin's paranoia resulted in a campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans" which culminated in the conspiracy theory of the alleged Doctors' plot. In Czechoslovakia, the Stalinists also accused their opponents of "conspiracy against the people's democratic order" and "high treason" in order to oust them from positions of power. Many Communists with an "international" background, i.e., those with a wartime connection with the West, veterans of the Spanish Civil War, Jews, and Slovak "bourgeois nationalists", were arrested and executed in show trials (e.g., Heliodor Píka, Milada Horáková). Most spectacular was the Slánský trial against KSČ first secretary Rudolf Slánský and thirteen other prominent Communist personalities in November and December 1952. Slánský and ten other defendants were executed, while three were sentenced to life imprisonment. The KSČ rank-and-file membership, approximately 2.5 million in March 1948, began to be subjected to careful scrutiny. By 1960, KSČ membership had been reduced to 1.4 million.
The Ninth-of-May Constitution provided for the nationalisation of all commercial and industrial enterprises having more than fifty employees. The non-agricultural private sector was nearly eliminated. Private ownership of land was limited to fifty hectares. The remnants of private enterprise and independent farming were permitted to carry on only as a temporary concession to the petite bourgeoisie and the peasantry. The Czechoslovak economy was determined by five-year plans.
Following the Soviet example, Czechoslovakia began emphasising the rapid development of heavy industry. The industrial sector was reorganised with an emphasis on metallurgy, heavy machinery, and coal mining. Production was concentrated in larger units; the more than 350,000 units of the pre-war period were reduced to about 1,700 units by 1958. Industrial output reportedly increased 233% between 1948–59 and employment in industry by 44%. The speed of industrialisation was particularly accelerated in Slovakia, where production increased 347% and employment by 70%. Although Czechoslovakia's industrial growth of 170% between 1948–57 was huge, it was far exceeded by that of Japan ( who increased by 300%) and West Germany (almost 300 percent) and more than equalled by Austria and Greece. For the 1954–59 period, France and Italy equalled Czechoslovak industrial growth.
Industrial growth in Czechoslovakia required substantial additional labour. Czechoslovaks were subjected to long hours and long working weeks to meet production quotas. Part-time, volunteer labour – students and white-collar workers – was drafted in massive numbers. Labour productivity, however, was not significantly increased; nor were production costs reduced. Czechoslovak products were characterised by poor quality. During the early years of Communist rule, many political prisoners were sentenced to penal labour.
The Ninth-of-May Constitution declared the government's intention to collectivise agriculture. In February 1949, the National Assembly adopted the Unified Agricultural Cooperatives Act. Cooperatives were to be founded on a voluntary basis; formal title to land was left vested in the original owners. The imposition of high compulsory quotas, however, forced peasants to collectivise in order to increase efficiency and facilitate mechanisation. Discriminatory policies were employed to bring about the ruin of recalcitrant kulaks (wealthy peasants). Collectivisation was near completion by 1960. 16% of all farmland (obtained from collaborators and kulaks) had been turned into state-run farms. Despite the elimination of poor land from cultivation and a tremendous increase in the use of fertilisers and tractors, agricultural production declined seriously. By 1959, pre-war production levels still had not been met. Major causes of the decline were the diversion of labour from agriculture to industry (in 1948 an estimated 2.2 million workers were employed in agriculture; by 1960, only 1.5 million); the suppression of the kulak, the most experienced and productive farmer; and the peasantry's opposition to collectivisation, which resulted in sabotage.
The 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia declared the victory of "socialism" and proclaimed the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. The ambiguous precept of "democratic centralism" – power emanating from the people but bound by the authority of higher organs – was made a formal part of constitutional law. The President, the Cabinet, the Slovak National Council, and the local governments were made responsible to the National Assembly. The National Assembly, however, continued its rubber-stamp approval of KSČ policies. All private enterprises using hired labour were abolished. Comprehensive economic planning was reaffirmed. The Bill of Rights emphasised economic and social rights, (e.g the right to work, leisure, health care, and education), with less emphasis on civil rights. The judiciary was combined with the prosecuting branch; all judges were committed to the protection of the socialist state and the education of citizens in loyalty to the cause of socialism.
De-Stalinization
De-Stalinization had a late start in Czechoslovakia. The KSČ leadership virtually ignored the Soviet law announced by Nikita Khrushchev 25 February 1956 at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In Czechoslovakia that April, at the Second Writers' Congress, several authors criticized acts of political repression and attempted to gain control of the writers' congress. The writers' rebellion was suppressed, however, and the conservatives retained control. Students in Prague and Bratislava demonstrated on May Day of 1956, demanding freedom of speech and access to the Western press. The Novotný regime condemned these activities and introduced a policy of neo-Stalinism.
After the Hungarian Revolution of October 1956 had been suppressed by Russian tanks and troops, many Czechs lost courage.
The 1958 KSČ Party Congress (XI. Congress, 18 June − 21 June) formalized the continuation of Stalinism.
In the early 1960s, the Economy of Czechoslovakia became severely stagnated. The industrial growth rate was the lowest in Eastern Europe. Food imports strained the balance of payments. Pressures both from Moscow and from within the party precipitated a reform movement. In 1963 reform-minded Communist intellectuals produced a proliferation of critical articles. Criticism of economic planning merged with more generalized protests against KSČ bureaucratic control and ideological conformity. The KSČ leadership responded. The purge trials of 1949–54 were reviewed, for example, and some of those purged were rehabilitated. Some hardliners were removed from top levels of government and replaced by younger, more liberal communists. Jozef Lenart replaced Prime Minister Viliam Široký in September 1963. The KSČ organized committees to review economic policy.
In 1965, the party approved the New Economic Model, which had been drafted under the direction of economist and theoretician Ota Šik. The program called for a second, intensive stage of economic development, emphasizing technological and managerial improvements. Central planning would be limited to overall production and investment indexes as well as price and wage guidelines. Management personnel would be involved in decision-making. Production would be market oriented and geared toward profitability. Prices would respond to supply and demand. Wage differentials would be introduced.
The KSČ "Theses" of December 1965 presented the party response to the call for political reform. Democratic centralism was redefined, placing a stronger emphasis on democracy. The leading role of the KSČ was reaffirmed but limited. In consequence, the National Assembly was promised increased legislative responsibility. The Slovak executive (Board of Commissioners) and legislature (Slovak National Council) were assured that they could assist the central government in program planning and assume responsibility for program implementation in Slovakia. The regional, district, and local national committees were to be permitted a degree of autonomy. The KSČ agreed to refrain from superseding the authority of economic and social organizations. Party control in cultural policy, however, was reaffirmed.
January 1967 was the date for full implementation of the reform program. Novotný and his supporters hesitated, introducing amendments to reinforce central control. Pressure from the reformists was stepped up. Slovaks pressed for federalization. Economists called for complete enterprise autonomy and economic responsiveness to the market mechanism. The Fourth Writers' Congress adopted a resolution calling for rehabilitation of the Czechoslovak literary tradition and the establishment of free contact with Western culture. The Novotný regime responded with repressive measures.
At the 30–31 October 1967 meeting of the KSČ Central Committee, Alexander Dubček, a Slovak reformer who had studied in the Soviet Union, challenged Novotný and was accused of nationalism. As university students in Prague demonstrated in support of the liberals, Novotný appealed to Moscow for assistance. On 8 December, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev arrived in Prague but did not support Novotný, giving a speech to the inner circle of the Communist Party in which he stated: "I did not come to take part in the solution of your problems... ...you will surely manage to solve them on your own." On 5 January 1968, the Central Committee elected Dubček to replace Novotný as first secretary of the KSČ. Novotný's fall from KSČ leadership precipitated initiatives to oust Stalinists from all levels of government, from mass associations, e.g., the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement and the Czechoslovak Union Youth, and from local party organs. On 22 March 1968, Novotný resigned from the presidency and was succeeded by General Ludvík Svoboda.
Prague Spring
Dubček carried the reform movement a step further in the direction of liberalism. After Novotný's fall, censorship was lifted. The media—press, radio, and television—were mobilized for reformist propaganda purposes. The movement to democratize socialism in Czechoslovakia, formerly confined largely to the party intelligentsia, acquired a new, popular dynamism in the spring of 1968.
In April the KSČ Presidium adopted the Action Programme that had been drafted by a coalition headed by Dubček and made up of reformers, moderates, centrists, and conservatives. The program proposed a "new model of socialism," profoundly "democratic" and "national," that is, adapted to Czechoslovak conditions. The National Front and the electoral system were to be democratized, and Czechoslovakia was to be federalized. Freedom of assembly and expression would be guaranteed in constitutional law. The New Economic Model was to be implemented. The Action Program also reaffirmed the Czechoslovak alliance with the Soviet Union and other socialist states. The reform movement, which rejected Stalinism as the road to communism, remained committed to communism as a goal.
The Action Program stipulated that reform must proceed under KSČ direction. In subsequent months, however, popular pressure mounted to implement reforms forthwith. Radical elements found expression: anti-Soviet polemics appeared in the press; the Social Democrats began to form a separate party; new unaffiliated political clubs were created. Party conservatives urged the implementation of repressive measures, but Dubček counselled moderation and reemphasized KSČ leadership. In May he announced that the Fourteenth Party Congress would convene in an early session on 9 September. The congress would incorporate the Action Program into the party statutes, draft a federalization law, and elect a new (presumably more liberal) Central Committee.
On 27 June, Ludvík Vaculík, a lifelong communist and a candidate member of the Central Committee, published a manifesto entitled the "Two Thousand Words". The manifesto expressed concern about conservative elements within the KSČ and "foreign" forces as well. (Warsaw Pact maneuvers were held in Czechoslovakia in late June.) It called on the "people" to take the initiative in implementing the reform program. Dubček, the party Presidium, the National Front, and the cabinet sharply denounced the manifesto.
The Soviet leadership was alarmed. In mid-July a Warsaw Pact conference was held without Czechoslovak participation. The Warsaw Pact nations drafted a letter to the KSČ leadership referring to the manifesto as an "organizational and political platform of counterrevolution." Pact members demanded the reimposition of censorship, the banning of new political parties and clubs, and the repression of "rightist" forces within the party. The Warsaw Pact nations declared the defence of Czechoslovakia's socialist gains to be not only the task of Czechoslovakia but also the mutual task of all Warsaw Pact countries. The KSČ rejected the Warsaw Pact ultimatum, and Dubček requested bilateral talks with the Soviet Union.
Soviet leader Brezhnev hesitated to intervene militarily in Czechoslovakia. Dubček's Action Program proposed a "new model of socialism"—"democratic" and "national." Significantly, however, Dubček did not challenge Czechoslovak commitment to the Warsaw Pact. In the early spring of 1968, the Soviet leadership adopted a wait-and-see attitude. By midsummer, however, two camps had formed: advocates and opponents of military intervention. The pro-interventionist coalition viewed the situation in Czechoslovakia as "counterrevolutionary" and favoured the defeat of Dubček and his supporters. This coalition was headed by the Ukrainian party leader Petro Shelest and included communist bureaucrats from Belarus and from the non-Russian national republics of the western part of the Soviet Union (the Baltic republics). The coalition members feared the awakening of nationalism within their respective republics and the influence of the Ukrainian minority in Czechoslovakia on Ukrainians in the Soviet Union. Bureaucrats responsible for political stability in Soviet cities and for the ideological supervision of the intellectual community also favoured a military solution. Within the Warsaw Pact, only the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Poland were strongly interventionist. Walter Ulbricht and Władysław Gomułka—party leaders of East Germany and Poland, respectively—viewed liberalism as threatening to their own positions.
The Soviet Union agreed to bilateral talks with Czechoslovakia to be held in July at Cierna nad Tisou, Slovak-Soviet border. At the meeting, Dubček defended the program of the reformist wing of the KSČ while pledging commitment to the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. The KSČ leadership, however, was divided. Vigorous reformers—Josef Smrkovský, Oldřich Černík, and František Kriegel—supported Dubček. Conservatives—Vasil Biľak, Drahomír Kolder, and Oldřich Švestka—adopted an anti-reformist stance. Brezhnev decided on compromise. The KSČ delegates reaffirmed their loyalty to the Warsaw Pact and promised to curb "antisocialist" tendencies, prevent the revival of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party, and control the press more effectively. The Soviets agreed to withdraw their troops (stationed in Czechoslovakia since the June maneuvers) and permit the 9 September party congress.
On 3 August, representatives from the Soviet Union, East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia met in Bratislava and signed the Bratislava Declaration. The declaration affirmed unshakable fidelity to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism and declared an implacable struggle against "bourgeois" ideology and all "antisocialist" forces. The Soviet Union expressed its intention to intervene in a Warsaw Pact country if a "bourgeois" system—a pluralist system of several political parties—was ever established. After the Bratislava conference, Soviet troops left Czechoslovak territory but remained along Czechoslovak borders. Dubček did not attempt to mobilize the Czechoslovak army to resist an invasion.
The KSČ party congress remained scheduled for 9 September. In the week following the Bratislava conference, it became an open secret in Prague that most of Dubček's opponents would be removed from the Central Committee. The Prague municipal party organization prepared and circulated a blacklist. The antireformist coalition could hope to stay in power only with Soviet assistance.
KSČ anti-reformists, therefore, made efforts to convince the Soviets that the danger of political instability and "counterrevolution" did indeed exist. They used the Kaspar Report, prepared by the Central Committee's Information Department, headed by Jan Kašpar, to achieve this end. The report provided an extensive review of the general political situation in Czechoslovakia as it might relate to the forthcoming party congress. It predicted that a stable Central Committee and a firm leadership could not necessarily be expected as the outcome of the congress. The party Presidium received the report on 12 August. Two Presidium members, Kolder and Alois Indra, were instructed to evaluate the report for the 20 August meeting of the Presidium. Kolder and Indra viewed the Kašpar Report with alarm and, some observers think, communicated their conclusions to the Soviet ambassador, Stepan Chervonenko. These actions are thought to have precipitated the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. As the KSČ Presidium convened on 20 August, the anti-reformists planned to make a bid for power, pointing to the imminent danger of counterrevolution. Kolder and Indra presented a resolution declaring a state of emergency and calling for "fraternal assistance." The resolution was never voted on, because the Warsaw Pact troops entered Czechoslovakia that same day (in the night of 20 August-21).
Warsaw Pact intervention and the end of Prague Spring
KSČ conservatives had misinformed Moscow regarding the strength of the reform movement. The KSČ Presidium met during the night of 20–21 August; it rejected the option of armed resistance and condemned the invasion. Two-thirds of the KSČ Central Committee opposed the Soviet intervention. A KSČ party congress, convened secretly on 22 August, passed a resolution affirming its loyalty to Dubček's Action Program and denouncing the Soviet aggression. President Svoboda repeatedly resisted Soviet pressure to form a new government under Indra. The Czechoslovak population was virtually unanimous in its repudiation of the Soviet action. In compliance with Svoboda's caution against acts that might provoke violence, they avoided mass demonstrations and strikes but observed a symbolic one-hour general work stoppage on 23 August.
Popular opposition was expressed in numerous spontaneous acts of nonviolent resistance, also called civil resistance. In Prague and other cities throughout the republic, Czechs and Slovaks greeted Warsaw Pact soldiers with arguments and reproaches. Every form of assistance, including the provision of food and water, was denied the invaders. Signs, placards, and graffiti drawn on walls and pavements denounced the invaders, the Soviet leaders, and suspected collaborators. Pictures of Dubček and Svoboda appeared everywhere.
The generalized resistance caused the Soviet Union to abandon its original plan to oust Dubček. Dubček, who had been arrested on the night of 20 August, was taken to Moscow for negotiations. The outcome was the Brezhnev Doctrine of limited sovereignty, which provided for the strengthening of the KSČ, strict party control of the media, and the suppression of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party. It was agreed that Dubček would remain in office and that a program of moderate reform would continue.
On 19 January 1969, student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Prague's Wenceslas Square as a protest against the end of the reforms of the Prague Spring following the Soviet invasion.
Normalization
Dubček remained in office only until April 1969. Anti-Soviet demonstrations, following Czechoslovakia's victory over the Soviet team in the World Ice Hockey Championships in March, precipitated Soviet pressures for a KSČ Presidium reorganization. Gustáv Husák, (a centrist and one of the Slovak "bourgeois nationalists" imprisoned by the KSČ in the 1950s), was named first secretary (title changed to general secretary in 1971). Only centrists and the hardliners led by Vasil Bilak continued in the Presidium.
A program of "normalization"—the restoration of continuity with the prereform period—was initiated. Normalization entailed thoroughgoing political repression and the return to ideological conformity
consolidate the Husák leadership and remove reformers from leadership positions;
revoke or modify the laws enacted by the reform movement;
reestablish centralized control over the economy;
reinstate the power of police authorities; and
expand Czechoslovakia's ties with other socialist nations.
One of the few changes proposed by the Action Programme during the Prague Spring that was actually achieved was the federalization of the country. Although it was mostly a formality during the normalization period, Czechoslovakia had been federalized under the Constitutional Law of Federation of 27 October 1968. The newly created Federal Assembly (i.e., federal parliament), which replaced the National Assembly, was intended to work in close cooperation with the Czech National Council and the Slovak National Council (i.e., national parliaments). The Gustáv Husák regime amended the law in January 1971 so that, while federalism was retained in form, central authority was effectively restored.
In the meantime, a Slovak parliament and government had been created, including all ministries except for defence and foreign affairs. Besides, a so-called no-majorisation principle requiring consensus between Czechia and Slovakia at the Federal Assembly in Prague was enacted. But due to the fact that neither governments nor parliaments made political decisions under the regime, it remained just a formality. Decisions were taken "by the politburo of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. There was one communist party and it was situated in Prague". Deciding about Slovak affairs in Slovakia was not allowed to happen.
At the official Fourteenth Party Congress in May 1971, party chief Husák announced the 1968 Fourteenth Party Congress had been abrogated, that "normalization" had been "completed" and that all the party needed to do was consolidate its gains. Husák's policy was to maintain a rigid status quo; for the next fifteen years, key personnel of the party and government remained the same. In 1975, Husák added the position of president to his post as party chief. He and other party leaders faced the task of rebuilding general party membership after the purges of 1969–71. By 1983, membership had returned to 1.6 million, about the same as in 1960.
In preserving the status quo, the Husák regime required conformity and obedience in all aspects of life. Czech and Slovak culture suffered greatly from the limitations on independent thought, as did the humanities, social sciences, and ultimately even natural sciences. Art had to adhere to a rigid formula of socialist realism. Soviet examples were held up for emulation. During the 1970s and 1980s, many of Czechoslovakia's most creative individuals were silenced, imprisoned, or sent into exile. Some found expression for their art through samizdat. Those artists, poets, and writers who were officially sanctioned were, for the most part, undistinguished. The award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1984 to Jaroslav Seifert—a poet identified with reformism and not favored by the Husák regime—was a bright spot in an otherwise bleak cultural scene.
In addition to applying repression, Husák also tried to obtain acquiescence to his rule by providing an improved standard of living. He returned Czechoslovakia to an orthodox command economy with a heavy emphasis on central planning and continued to extend industrialization. For a while, the policy seemed successful because, despite the lack of investment in new technologies, there was an increase in industrial output. The government encouraged consumerism and materialism and took a tolerant attitude toward a slack work ethic and a growing black market second economy:
In the early 1970s, there was a steady increase in the standard of living; it seemed that the improved economy might mitigate political and cultural oppression and give the government a modicum of legitimacy.
By the mid-1970s, consumerism failed as a palliative for political oppression. The government could not sustain an indefinite expansion without coming to grips with limitations inherent in a command economy. The effects of the 1973 oil crisis further exacerbated the economic decline. Materialism, encouraged by a corrupt government, also produced cynicism, greed, nepotism, corruption, and a lack of work discipline. Whatever elements of a social contract the government tried to establish with Czechoslovak society crumbled with the decline in living standards of the mid-1970s.
The 1980s were more or less a period of economic stagnation.
Another feature of Husák's rule was a continued dependence on the Soviet Union. As of the mid-1980s, Husák had not yet achieved a balance between what could be perceived as Czechoslovak national interest and Soviet dictate. In foreign policy, Czechoslovakia parroted every utterance of the Soviet position. Frequent contacts between the Soviet and Czechoslovak communist parties and governments made certain that the Soviet position on any issue was both understood and followed. The Soviets continued to exert control over Czechoslovak internal affairs, including oversight over the police and security apparatus. Five Soviet ground divisions and two air divisions had become a permanent fixture, while the Czechoslovak military was further integrated into the Warsaw Pact. In the 1980s, approximately 50% of Czechoslovakia's foreign trade was with the Soviet Union, and almost 80% was with communist countries. There were constant exhortations about further cooperation and integration between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia in industry, science, technology, consumer goods, and agriculture. Deriving its legitimacy from Moscow, the Husák regime remained a slavish imitator of political, cultural, and economic trends emanating from Moscow.
Dissent and independent activity (1970s and 1980s)
Through the 1970s and 1980s, the government's emphasis on obedience, conformity, and the preservation of the status quo was challenged by individuals and organized groups aspiring to independent thinking and activity. Although only a few such activities could be deemed political by Western standards, the state viewed any independent action, no matter how innocuous, as a defiance of the party's control over all aspects of Czechoslovak life. The government's response to such activity was harassment, persecution, and, in some instances, imprisonment.
In the context of international detente, Czechoslovakia had signed the United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1968. In 1975 these were ratified by the Federal Assembly, which, according to the Constitution of 1960, is the highest legislative organization. The Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe's Final Act (also known as the Helsinki Accords), signed by Czechoslovakia in 1975, also included guarantees of human rights.
The first organized opposition emerged under the umbrella of Charter 77. On 6 January 1977, a manifesto called Charter 77 appeared in West German newspapers. The document was immediately translated and reprinted throughout the world. The original manifesto reportedly was signed by 243 people; among them were artists, former public officials, and other prominent figures, such as Zdeněk Mlynář, secretary of the KSČ Central Committee in 1968; Václav Slavík, a Central Committee member in 1968; and Ludvík Vaculík, author of "Two Thousand Words." Charter 77 defined itself as "a loose, informal, and open community of people" concerned with the protection of civil and human rights. It denied oppositional intent and based its defense of rights on legally binding international documents signed by the Czechoslovak government and on guarantees of civil rights contained in the Czechoslovak Constitution. The Charter 77 group declared its objectives to be the following: to draw attention to individual cases of human rights infringements; to suggest remedies; to make general proposals to strengthen rights and freedoms and the mechanisms designed to protect them; and to act as intermediary in situations of conflict. The Charter had over 800 signatures by the end of 1977, including workers and youth; by 1985 nearly 1,200 Czechoslovaks had signed the Charter. The Husák regime, which claimed that all rights derive from the state and that international covenants are subject to the internal jurisdiction of the state, responded with fury to the Charter. The text was never published in the official media. Signatories were arrested and interrogated; dismissal from employment often followed. The Czechoslovak press launched vicious attacks against the Charter. The public was mobilized to sign either individual condemnations or various forms of "anti-Charters."
Closely associated with Charter 77, the Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Persecuted (Výbor na obranu nespravedlivě stíhaných—VONS) was formed in 1978 with the specific goal of documenting individual cases of government persecution and human rights violations. Between 1978 and 1984, VONS issued 409 communiques concerning individuals prosecuted or harassed.
On a larger scale, independent activity was expressed through underground writing and publishing. Because of the decentralized nature of underground writing, it is difficult to estimate its extent or impact. Some observers state that hundreds of books, journals, essays, and short stories were published and distributed. In the mid-1980s, several samizdat publishing houses were in operation. The best known was Edice Petlice (Padlock Editions), which had published more than 250 volumes. There were a number of clandestine religious publishing houses that published journals in photocopy or printed form. The production and distribution of underground literature was difficult. In most cases, manuscripts had to be typed and retyped without the aid of modern publishing equipment. Publication and distribution were also dangerous. Mere possession of samizdat materials could be the basis for harassment, loss of employment, and arrest and imprisonment.
Independent activity also extended to music. The state was particularly concerned about the impact of Western popular music on Czechoslovak youth. The persecution of rock musicians and their fans led a number of musicians to sign Charter 77. In the forefront of the struggle for independent music was the Jazz Section of the Union of Musicians. Initially organized to promote jazz, in the late 1970s it became a protector of various kinds of nonconformist music. The widely popular Jazz Section had a membership of approximately 7,000 and received no official funds. It published music and promoted concerts and festivals. The government condemned the Jazz Section for spreading "unacceptable views" among the youth and moved against its leadership. In March 1985, the Jazz Section was dissolved under a 1968 statute banning "counterrevolutionary activities." The Jazz Section continued to operate, however, and in 1986 the government arrested the members of its steering committee.
Because religion offered possibilities for thought and activities independent of the state, it too was severely restricted and controlled. Clergymen were required to be licensed. In attempting to manipulate the number and kind of clergy, the state even sponsored a pro-government organization of Catholic priests, the Association of Catholic Clergy Pacem in Terris. Nevertheless, there was religious opposition, including a lively Catholic samizdat. In the 1980s, Cardinal František Tomášek, the Czech primate, adopted a more independent stand. In 1984 he invited the Pope to come to Czechoslovakia for the 1,100th anniversary of the death of Saint Methodius, the missionary to the Slavs. The pope accepted, but the trip was blocked by the government. The cardinal's invitation and the pope's acceptance were widely circulated in samizdat. A petition requesting the government to permit the papal visit had 17,000 signatories. The Catholic Church did have a massive commemoration of the 1,100th anniversary in 1985. At Velehrad (allegedly the site of Methodius's tomb) more than 150,000 pilgrims attended a commemorative mass, and another 100,000 came to a ceremony at Levoca (in eastern Slovakia).
Unlike in Poland, dissent, opposition to the government, and independent activity were limited in Czechoslovakia to a fairly small segment of the populace. Even the dissenters saw scant prospect for fundamental reforms. In this sense, the Husák regime was successful in preserving the status quo in "normalized" Czechoslovakia.
The selection of Mikhail Gorbachev as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 11 March 1985, presented the Husák regime with a new and unexpected challenge to the status quo. Soon after assuming office, Gorbachev began a policy of perestroika ("restructuring") the Soviet economy and advocated glasnost ("openness") in the discussion of economic, social, and, to some extent, political questions. Up to this time, the Husák regime had dutifully adopted the programs and slogans that had emanated from Moscow. But, for a government wholly dedicated to the preservation of the status quo, subjects such as "openness," economic "restructuring," and "reform" had been taboo.
Ethnic groups
Slovaks
Minorities
The roughly 6% of the population who were neither Czech nor Slovak in the 1980s have had an uneven history in the postwar era. The highly centralized rule of the KSČ undermined the political leverage that the First Republic's multiparty politics had permitted to ethnic minorities. Beyond this, however, the sheer decrease in the German, who before their expulsion had amounted to 3 million citizens, having had played a large role in the area for centuries, as well as the decrease Ukrainian populations of Czechoslovakia would have limited their influence in any event.
The events of the late 1960s brought calls for reform from ethnic minorities. The government's response was Constitutional Act No. 144 (October 1968), which defined the status of ethnic groups in Czechoslovakia and acknowledged the full political and cultural rights of legally recognized minorities. Minorities were granted the right, with state approval, to their own cultural organizations. The emphasis has been on cultural activities; minority organizations have had no right to represent their members in political affairs.
Hungarians
In the 1980s, Hungarians were the largest enumerated minority ethnic group. In 1989 approximately 560,000 Hungarians (concentrated in southern Slovakia) made up 11% of Slovakia's population. Despite significant anti-Hungarian sentiment in Slovakia, the postwar exchange of Slovaks in Hungary for Hungarians in Slovakia met with only limited success; the proportion of Hungarians in the population has changed little since 1930 (see History).
Although Hungarians were a distinct minority of the total population, they were highly visible in the border regions of Slovakia. There, Hungarians constituted nearly half the population of some districts. Furthermore, 20% lived in exclusively Hungarian settlements. Given Hungary's long domination of Slovakia, Hungarian-Slovak relations have not been easy; the two groups are separated by substantial linguistic and cultural differences. In 1968 some Hungarians in Slovakia called for reincorporation into Hungary. This was apparently a minority view; Hungarian Warsaw Pact troops entering Czechoslovakia in 1968 encountered as much hostility from Hungarians in Slovakia as they did from the rest of the population.
It is interesting to compare the situation of the 560,000 Hungarians in Czechoslovakia with that of 30,000 Slovaks in Hungary in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1988, the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia had 386 kindergartens, 131 basic schools, 96 secondary schools, two theatres, one publishing institution and twenty-four print media producers. Six Slovak publishing institutions were also publishing Hungarian literature. The Slovaks in Hungary, however, had no kindergartens, no schools, no theatres and one print media producer. One Hungarian publishing institution was also publishing Slovak literature. This is primarily because the Slovak population of Hungary is much more sparsely populated across northern and southern Hungary and are not concentrated in one compact region.
The 1960 Constitution of Czechoslovakia which ensured protection for Hungarian, Ukrainian, and Polish minority groups in Czechoslovakia. This legislation was often criticized by Slovak extremists who were opposed to minority rights in Slovakia.
Germans
With the expulsion of the Germans in 1945, Czechoslovakia lost over one-fifth of its population. Some 165,000 Germans escaped deportation and remained scattered along the country's western border in the former Sudetenland. Through the mid-1970s, Germans represented a declining proportion of the population; younger Germans increasingly were assimilated into Czech society or emigrated to the West. Even those Germans who were not expelled after World War II were not permitted to hold Czechoslovak citizenship until 1953.
In 1968–69, Germans demanded more German-language publications and mandatory German language instruction in areas having a substantial German minority. The 1968 Constitutional Act No. 144 recognized the Germans' legal status as an ethnic minority for the first time since World War II.
Poles
Poles (approximately 71,000 in 1984) were concentrated in the Cieszyn Silesia on the northeastern border of the Czech Socialist Republic. In addition to a large community of resident Poles, a substantial number commuted across the border from Poland to work or to take advantage of the relative abundance of Czechoslovak consumer goods. Official policies toward the Poles (resident or not) have attempted to limit their influence both in and out of the workplace. In 1969, for example, a Czech journal reported that a primarily Polish-speaking district in the Ostrava area had been gerrymandered to create two districts, each with a Czech majority.
Czechoslovak officialdom considered Polish influence in the workplace an insidious danger. The "seepage" from more liberal Polish governments had concerned Czechoslovak communists since the 1950s, when Poles led the way in resisting increased work demands. The 1980–81 unrest in Poland exacerbated the situation. There were reports of strikes among the workers in the Ostrava area in late 1980.
Roma
Before World War II, Romani people in Czechoslovakia were considered Czechoslovak citizens of Romani nationality. After the war, since they did not possess the properties of a nationality according to communist criteria, they were regarded by the communist government as merely a special ethnic group. Based on this, the state approached the matter not as a question of nationality but as a social and political question.
Eastern Slovakia had a sizable Roma minority. About 66% of the country's Roma lived in Slovakia in the 1980s, where they constituted about 4% of the population. Estimates of their exact numbers vary, but observers agree that their postwar birthrate has been phenomenal. In the early 1970s, there were approximately 200,000 to 300,000 Roma in the country. In 1980 estimates ranged from 250,000 to 400,000.
Roma intelligentsia agitated unsuccessfully for inclusion of the Romani People in the 1968 Constitutional Act No. 144, and they remained the largest unrecognized minority in Czechoslovakia. Policy makers have found them a conundrum. The Roma population combines continued high rates of crime and illiteracy with a cultural system that places low value on regular employment. According to Czechoslovak Life, in 1986, "the customs and thinking of the Roma population are somewhat different." A 1979 article in Bratislava's Pravda asserted that the crime rate among the Romani population was four times the national average. The author went on to call for "the incorporation of all Gypsy citizens of productive age to [sic] the working process" and to decry the number of Roma "who constantly refuse to work". A large number of Roma were involved in the black market.
Official policy has vacillated between forced assimilation and enforced isolation in carefully controlled settlements. The nomadic wandering integral to Roma culture has been illegal since 1958. Laws passed in 1965 and 1969 provided for "dispersion" of the Romani people, i.e., transferring them from areas where they were concentrated to other areas. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, assimilationist policies held clear sway. There were efforts to increase the participation of Roma children in preschool, kindergarten, secondary school, apprenticeship programs, and summer recreational and educational camps. There were also concerted government attempts to integrate Roma into the national labor force; in the early 1980s, some 90% of adult Roma males below retirement age were employed. In 1979 about 50% of working-age Roma women were employed; by 1981 this figure had risen to 74%.
The Roma birthrate was reportedly two and one-half to three times the national average; in the mid-1980s, it was 2.6% per year as opposed to 0.7% per year for the population as a whole.
Ukrainians and Rusyns
Czechoslovakia lost most of its Ukrainian and Rusyn (Ruthenian) population when Carpatho-Ukraine was ceded to the Soviet Union after World War II. In 1983 the remaining 48,000 or so Ukrainians and Ruthenians were clustered in north eastern Slovakia. They remained overwhelmingly agricultural; often they were private farmers scattered on small, impoverished holdings in mountainous terrain. They were generally Uniates and suffered in the 1950s and 1960s from the government's repression of that group in favor of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Jews
A very small fraction of Czechoslovakia's pre–World War II Jewish community remained in the 1980s. Estimates of both the prewar and the postwar Jewish population are imprecise. Calculations based on either religious preference or the number of Yiddish speakers ignored the large numbers of assimilated Jews in Bohemia and Slovakia. Most estimates put the pre–World War II population in the neighborhood of 250,000. In 1975 Malcolm Browne stated that there were some 5,000 practicing Jews remaining in Czechoslovakia, including about 1,200 in Prague, which once had a large, vibrant Jewish community dating back to the Middle Ages.
Some anti-Jewish sentiment still existed in the 1980s. The government's vehemently anti-Israeli stance, coupled with a persistent failure to distinguish between Israelis and Jews, gave anti-Semitic attitudes continued prominence. Official denunciations of dissidents having purportedly Jewish names added a distinctly anti-Semitic flavor. One Charter 77 signer was condemned as "an international adventurer" and another, more pointedly, as "a foreigner without fatherland who was never integrated into the Czech community"—notorious euphemisms long used in anti-Jewish rhetoric. Officials alleged that the signers were under orders from "anticommunist and Zionist centers".
Greeks
Following the expulsion of the ethnic German population from Czechoslovakia, parts of the former Sudetenland, especially around Krnov and the surrounding villages of the Jesenik mountain region in northeastern Czechoslovakia, were settled in 1949 by Communist refugees from Northern Greece who had left their homeland as a result of the Greek Civil War. These Greeks made up a large proportion of the town and region's population until the late 1980s/early 1990s. Although defined as "Greeks", the Greek Communist community of Krnov and the Jeseniky region actually consisted of an ethnically diverse population, including Greek Macedonians, Slavo-Macedonians, Vlachs, Pontic Greeks and Turkish speaking Urums or Caucasus Greeks.
See also
Operation Neptune (Espionage)
References
Bibliography
Bradley F. Abrams, The Struggle for the Soul of the Nation: Czech Culture and the Rise of Communism (Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield, 2004) (The Harvard Cold War Studies Book Series).
Stefan Karner et al. (eds.), Prager Frühling. Das internationale Krisenjahr 1968, 2 Bde. (Köln / Weimar / Wien: Böhlau 2008) (Veröffentlichungen des Ludwig-Boltzmann-Instituts für Kriegsfolgen-Forschung, Graz – Wien – Klagenfurt; Sonderband 9/1, 9/2).
Pucci, M. (2020). Security Empire: The Secret Police in Communist Eastern Europe (Yale-Hoover Series on Authoritarian Regimes). New Haven: Yale University Press.
External links
Archiv ČT 24 – Archive of The Czech Television – TV News from the socialist era, in Czech
Memory of Nation (in Czech Paměť národa)
Post Bellum – Stories of the Twentieth Century
Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů (The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes)
RFE Czechoslovak Unit, Blinken Open Society Archives, Budapest
The history of the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Persecuted VONS, Prague
The CWIHP at the Wilson Center for Scholars Document Collection on Czechoslovakia in the Cold War
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Communism in Czechoslovakia
Socialism in Czechoslovakia
Politics of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia |
421810 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicane%20%28musician%29 | Chicane (musician) | Nicholas Bracegirdle (born 28 February 1971), known professionally as Chicane, is an English musician, composer, songwriter, and record producer. Among his works are singles "Offshore", an Ibiza trance anthem included in many compilations in both chill-out and dance versions; "Saltwater", which featured vocals by Clannad member Máire Brennan, and the UK number-one hit "Don't Give Up", featuring vocals by Bryan Adams, which also became a top ten hit on singles charts across Europe and Australia.
Far from the Maddening Crowds, Chicane's debut studio album from 1997, is still considered a seminal release among the trance music community, and his second studio album, 2000's Behind the Sun, was certified gold in the UK. In 2007, after the hindrance of an ultimately unreleased album (Easy to Assemble) in the intervening time, the third artist album Somersault was released on Bracegirdle's independent record label, followed shortly after by a tenth anniversary re-release of Far from the Maddening Crowds which included a new mix of "Offshore" ("Offshore 2007"). He released his fourth studio album Giants in 2010, with the fifth studio album Thousand Mile Stare following less than two years later, in spring 2012. The sixth studio album, The Sum of Its Parts, appeared in early 2015, and his seventh studio album, The Place You Can't Remember, the Place You Can't Forget, was released in 2018. The eighth studio album, Everything We Had to Leave Behind, was released in 2021.
In addition, Bracegirdle also worked with Leo Elstob under the alias Disco Citizens, producing a handful of less radio-friendly, vocal-less tracks with a stronger progressive house sound. Working with singer Vanessa St. James and producer Mr. Joshua, Bracegirdle was part of the Mr. Joshua Presents Espiritu project, known for the song "In Praise of the Sun", released with both English and French vocals. Bracegirdle contributed with executive production on Tomski's "14 Hours to Save the Earth". Nick Bracegirdle has also used the alias, Sitvac, to produce a one-time single, "Wishful Thinking".
Early life
While having trained in classical guitar and piano at an early age, Bracegirdle's earliest influences in electronic music came from melodic composers such as Jean Michel Jarre and Vangelis, and synthpop pioneer Vince Clarke; a further influence was the dance hit "Anthem" by the house music group N-Joi. All of this convinced him to pursue the creation of melodic electronic dance music. By the age of 12, he was making music in recording studios and sending demos to record labels.
Career
1996–1998: Initial success and Far from the Maddening Crowds
Bracegirdle's first release was the four track EP Cyanide Music Volume One in 1996. This contained music styles varying from deep house to trip hop and nu-disco. This was released the Cyanide record label and was a little known precursor to "Offshore". The Cyanide label then released Offshore EP #1, which contained the original version of "Offshore" as well three other tracks, again of varying styles. Eventually Bracegirdle founded his own record label Modena Records, which holds the rights to all his songs and licenses them to other labels for release and distribution. A partnership with Leo Elstob produced the first Disco Citizens single, "Right Here Right Now", in 1995, as well as the first Chicane single, "Offshore", in 1996. "Offshore" would be the first of Chicane's many releases on Edel UK Records and independent UK dance music record label Xtravaganza Recordings, then-newly founded by DJ and Bracegirdle's college friend Alex Gold. It reached No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart (and No. 1 on other UK-based charts compiled by Mixmag, Record Mirror, and others), the top 40 in multiple European countries, and No. 5 on the US Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts in 1997 upon re-release. Its inclusion on numerous Ibiza-themed trance music compilation albums (such as Café del Mar) attest to its popularity in the nightclubs on the island, one of the worldwide epicentres of dance music.
"Sunstroke", the follow-up single, attained similar popularity and chart numbers. A third single, "Offshore '97" (a separate item from the re-release of "Offshore") is a mashup of "Offshore" with the a capella from the Power Circle song "A Little Love, a Little Life", mixed by producer and DJ Anthony Pappa. Originally a bootleg, it was turned into an official release, credited to "Chicane with Power Circle".
Following these releases, Bracegirdle's debut studio album Far from the Maddening Crowds was released in September 1997. Additional singles that followed were "Lost You Somewhere", the Benelux release "Red Skies", and the non-album single "Strong in Love", for which Bracegirdle used vocals by British singer Sylvia Mason-James (after discovering that she was the vocalist on the Paul Oakenfold and Steve Osborne remix of "Lemon" by U2) and first collaborated on production with Ray "Madman" Hedges (producer for B*Witched and Boyzone).
1999–2003: Collaborations and Behind the Sun
1999 saw the release of "Saltwater", a song based on Máire Brennan's vocals from "Theme from Harry's Game" by the Celtic band Clannad. It surpassed all previous Chicane singles, reaching No. 6 on the UK charts and No. 1 on all five major UK dance charts. The song was used in a Belfast City advertisement broadcast in 2005–2006 across regional channels. The version of the vocals used in "Saltwater", however, was a new recording by Brennan herself.
After producing a radio remix of Bryan Adams's "Cloud Number Nine", Bracegirdle offered Adams the vocal position on the song "Don't Give Up". The vocals Adams recorded were subsequently heavily processed through a vocoder so as to play down his rock music vocal style. The vocal credit was initially not publicised when the single was sent to Pete Tong's BBC Radio 1 program Essential Selection. On the show, Tong made the song his first "Essential New Tune" selection of the new millennium. It was also Chicane's biggest hit, debuting at No. 1 on the UK charts (and notably replacing "American Pie", Madonna's No. 1 single of the previous week), reached No. 3 on the US dance chart and No. 1 on Australian and Russian charts, and made other charts across Europe as well.
On 27 March 2000, Bracegirdle released his second studio album Behind the Sun. It was certified gold by the BPI, while "Don't Give Up" was certified silver. Two other singles were released from the album—the double A-side "No Ordinary Morning / Halcyon", and "Autumn Tactics"—but neither were as successful as the preceding releases.
In 2002, Bracegirdle co-wrote two songs on Cher's album Living Proof, "You Take It All" and "Alive Again", the latter which was released as a single in Europe only. The 2001 Edition of the EA Sports Formula One Video Game Series included the songs "Sunstroke", "The Drive Home", and a remix of "Nagasaki Badger".
2006–2008: New management and Somersault
Eventually, under the new management of John Cavanagh, April 2006 saw the release of a new single, "Stoned in Love", on Globe Records through Universal Music Group, featuring singer Tom Jones on vocals. (Press Release). At the time of the announcement the song was also played twice by Pete Tong.
The track received substantial UK TV promotion in the run up to the week of release, featuring utterly live performances on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, The New Paul O'Grady Show and a semi-live performance on BBC's now defunct Top of the Pops. Jones and Bracegirdle were also interviewed on Channel 5 News; When asked in the 5 News interview where he had been since "Don't Give Up", Bracegirdle replied that he had been "basically stuffed" by the internet bootlegging of the album Easy to Assemble.
In February 2007, Chicane departed from Universal as well; according to the official website, all new material would be released through Modena itself. The follow-up single "Come Tomorrow" was released on 16 July 2007, followed by the third official studio album, Somersault, a week later on 23 July 2007. Bracegirdle has entirely self-financed these initial independent releases, as well as subsequent live performances. On 4 May 2007, the Cicada remix of "Come Tomorrow" was played on Radio 1 by Pete Tong.
On 25 August 2008, Chicane released "Bruised Water" with Natasha Bedingfield. Promotional copies of the track were made available, with remixes from Mischa Daniels and Adam K. Following the leak of his 2003 album, Chicane now employs the international internet policing company, Web Sheriff to prevent links to unlicensed material, such as this single and other tracks from his upcoming album, from being posted on various blogs and websites.
In October 2008, Chicane released a greatest hits compilation, The Best of Chicane - 1996-2008 which features his previous singles, along with a new track called "Wake Up", a collaboration with Keane. "No Ordinary Morning", "Don't Give Up" and "Saltwater" were re-recorded for the album as the original sound recordings were still owned by Xtravaganza and were unable to be licensed due to the dispute between Chicane and Alex Gold in 2002. Chicane's Xtravaganza recordings from Far From The Maddening Crowds were no longer owned by Xtravaganza and thus were included in their original form.
2009–2010: Giants
Bracegirdle worked with producers James Hockley and Richard Searle on the Re-Work EP for a targeted summer 2009 release, along with a new and fourth Chicane album and mixes of forthcoming productions by BT and William Orbit. The lead track from the Re-work EP, "Poppiholla" based on the track "Hoppípolla" by Sigur Rós, was A-listed on Radio 1. It charted at No. 7 in the top 10 on 19 July 2009, and was added to a reissued version of the Best of album. The download single contained a remix by the Thrillseekers, along with a mix by Bracegirdle's moniker Disco Citizens. The follow-up to this single was revealed as "Hiding All the Stars", which contains a sample of Gary Numan's "Cars", which had its first full play on Radio 1's Floorfillers on 21 August 2009.
In September, Chicane produced a remix of the classic track "Relax (Don't Do It)" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which is part of the 25-year anniversary of the seminal track. It was learned that the Re-Work EP was cancelled although no official announcement was ever made in regards to this. Other 'reworked' tracks that were due to appear on the EP were never mentioned from the initial announcement. Recently stated from Chicane Management; there were actually quite a few that people never got to hear. In a June 2010 interview with Impact Magazine, Bracegirdle commented on the 'Re-work EP' issue. "We covered House Arrest and there's a massive bag of legal problems with that record. God knows why. Poppiholla became this complete and utter monster... The best laid plans of mice and men can go completely astray once you have a big record. Things change all the time... the plan was to (release Re-worked) and then the whole thing went completely mental... in a good way."
The first official word on Chicane's fourth studio album, Giants, came in January through his Facebook artist profile. "Come Back", the first single in connection with the new album, is a rework of the Paul Young 1980s hit "Come Back and Stay" and came with a remix by Riley & Durrant. The single was released on 25 April. The same month a new track, "Barefoot", was added to Chicane's website. A laidback, Baleric-style tune, it proved popular with listeners awaiting the new album. This was followed by the track "Titles".
In May, Bracegirdle officially announced the new album through Facebook. He also revealed a new single "Middledistancerunner", featuring Owl City's Adam Young on vocals. "The Nothing Song" is a remake of another Sigur Ros song: "Untitled 4". The album also features the singles "Hiding All the Stars", "Come Back" and "Poppiholla".
The album and "Middledistancerunner" were released on 2 August 2010. During the first week of release, a new track, called Velo, was given away as a free download via Chicane's website. In November the track "Where Do I Start" was released as a single. Among others it was remixed by Armin van Buuren.
2011–2015: Thousand Mile Stare and The Sum of Its Parts
An upcoming Chicane single was announced in April through Twitter. "Going Deep", featuring British producer and rapper Aggi Dukes, had its first airplay on Steve Smart's radio show Friday Night Kiss on 8 April. The video was released at the start of July and tells the story of Aggi Dukes—represented by a comical puppet, starting off in a cafe in the UK, before he undertakes on an epic party holiday to Magaluf, Mallorca. The single was released on 14 August, and remixes were made by Steve Smart & WestFunk, and VillaNaranjos. On 18 June, Chicane released the 'Wawa Remix' of his production "Spirit" as a free download from the official homepage.
On 29 July 2011, Chicane revealed a preview of the title track for the then forthcoming artist album Thousand Mile Stare on YouTube. Unfortunately, by November it was clear that the album had been leaked onto the internet, the second time such an occasion had occurred in Chicane's career. For a time it seemed doubtful whether the album would ever get released, but an exclusive box set version of Thousand Mile Stare was released on 12 December 2011. It included a cassette-shaped USB flash drive of rare material and an album of remixes. Each early order contained the buyer's name on the album sleeve. The regular version of the album, which contained three previously unreleased tracks, was released on 16 April 2012, with an album launch live show following in London at Koko on 27 April with guest performances from Kate Walsh, Vigri, Aggi Dukes and support from VillaNaranjos.
On 13 April 2012, the Dutch label Armada Music announced that they had joined with Chicane's UK record label Modena Records. After having worked together extensively throughout the past four years, with Armada Music releasing Chicane's singles and albums for the Benelux, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Poland, Armada will be representing Chicane worldwide in the future.
In July 2012, Chicane collaborated with Ferry Corsten to write and produce a track called "One Thousand Suns", featuring singer Christian Burns, and loosely based on Chicane's "Thousand Mile Stare".
In a 9 December 2012 interview with Eightoctaves.com, Chicane announced that he was working on a new album. He also said in the interview that "There are going to be some pretty stunning collaborations and guest appearances, I hope. I've just been recording in Mumbai with Anushka and that track is going to be stunning."
In 2013, Chicane released "One More Time" which featured the vocals of Duane Harden.
In April 2014, Chicane had a dispute with DJ Mark Knight about his unauthorized sampling of "Saltwater" in Knight's track "The Return of Wolfy".
On 25 May 2014, Chicane released the single "No More I Sleep", featuring the vocals of Senadee.
In the July 2014 issue of the Sun:Sets radio show, Chicane named the title of the upcoming album The Sum of Its Parts. It was released on 25 January 2015. An unconfirmed pre-order listing on iTunes UK showed an early release date (16 November 2014) and a different track list running order. The fourth single from the album is called "Still With Me" and is sung by British artist Bo Bruce. A remix by Andreas Van Hoog was premiered on Forth One Radio. The single was officially released on 26 October 2014.
Chicane released "Oxygen" as a remix EP on 5 July 2015, the fifth single from The Sum of Its Parts. On 2 October 2015, he released two new tracks "Ibiza Strings" and "Ibiza Bleeps" as part his second extended play Ibiza. He released the sixth and final single "Fibreglasses" on 30 October 2015.
2016–2019: Twenty and The Place You Can't Remember, the Place You Can't Forget
On 29 July 2016, Chicane released a compilation album titled Twenty as a celebration of his twentieth anniversary in the music industry. The album was preceded by the lead single "Carry Me Home" (a rework of the song of the same name by Gloworm) featuring the vocals of Steve Edwards; released on 3 June 2016.
Twenty features Chicane's greatest hits, plus brand new remixes by Philip George, Kryder, Grum, Jody Wisternoff, Thomas Datt, and himself. As with the 2008 best of album, "No Ordinary Morning", "Don't Give Up" and "Saltwater" are re-recordings as the original sound recordings were still owned by Xtravaganza and were unable to be licensed for this compilation due to a dispute between Chicane and Xtaravagnza boss Alex Gold, dated back to 2002. Chicane's previous Xtravaganza recordings which had been distributed by Edel Records in 1996/1997 are featured in their original form as Xtravaganza lost the rights to those sound recordings, with "Strong in Love" being released for the first time since its original release in 1998.
On 16 February 2018, Chicane released a mix compilation album titled Sun:Sets 2018 (Selected by Chicane).
In 2018, Chicane announced his seventh studio album on his weekly Sun:Sets podcast. The album The Place You Can't Remember, the Place You Can't Forget was released on 8 June 2018. It includes the singles "Gorecki" (originally written & performed by Lou Rhodes and the band Lamb) and "Serendipity" featuring Tracy Ackerman.
In 2019, Chicane released the follow-up to the original Sun:Sets compilation with the album titled Sun:Sets 2019 (Selected by Chicane).
2020–present: Everything We Had to Leave Behind
In May 2020, Chicane released Behind The Sun (2020 Anniversary Mixes), featuring new mixes and remixes from other artists of the original tracks from the 2000 album.
On 23 April 2021, Chicane released his eighth studio album, titled Everything We Had to Leave Behind.
Musical style
Style
Bracegirdle describes his music as being strongly influenced by the relaxed, summer atmosphere of Ibiza, where he was taken on holidays as a child. In an interview in 2012, Bracegirdle stated that he does not draw inspiration from dance music; but from film soundtracks and musicians like Brian Eno and Trevor Horn. He wrote "I have a lot of time for producers like myself, BT, Eric Prydz, but as I said, they are not really an influence upon me. It's artists such as Vangelis that inspired me many years back".
His first two studio albums, along with Giants – the fourth studio album – are known for atmospheric, ambient melodies and shifting moods and tempos, particularly Far from the Maddening Crowds, which has been called "a soundtrack for an average day".
Bracegirdle's career took a turn following the release of Behind the Sun, at which point he stated desires to focus on being a recording artist and producer, starting with planned work on Bryan Adams' then-upcoming studio album. (However, Adams would not release another studio album until 2004.) Bracegirdle also put remix work on hold at this point, reportedly turning down Jean Michel Jarre, Moby, and both Kylie and Dannii Minogue. The music that followed also changed; in more recent interviews, Bracegirdle has noted that he is consciously moving away from the influences of Ibiza in his songwriting—calling it a return to his "song writing background" as opposed to dance music.
Bracegirdle's dance music productions have caused him to be incorrectly identified as a DJ throughout his career. As early as 1997, The Mirror called him a "top DJ" in an article, while the Portland Press Herald published a 2000 review in which both Chicane and BT were referred to as DJs. Most recently, in 2007, Bracegirdle remarked in an interview that many people still hold this belief.
Far from the Maddening Crowds and Behind the Sun were both primarily recorded at Chicane's personal recording studio, Modena One (sharing the name of his own record label), located at his parents' house. Co-producers who worked on these albums are Leo Elstob, Salt Tank, Ray "Madman" Hedges, and Martin Brannigan. Tomski was commissioned to program the opening tracks ("Early" and "Overture") on both albums and contributed snippets and sounds to other tracks. However, Bracegirdle has stated that he works alone when in his own studio. Recently, references to a studio called "Modena 2" have appeared in liner notes since the April 2006 release of the "Stoned in Love" single.
With the April 2011 premiere of the Chicane single "Going Deep" Bracegirdle stressed his own statement, that 'Chicane music is not bound by a certain genre'. 'Going Deep' is certainly a new turn in the sound as it is a blend of 90s retro disco, rap in a modern house, trance package.
Live
Chicane also performs live shows as a full-fledged band, which has included a rotating line-up of singers, guitarists, drummers, and flautists, as well as Bracegirdle himself on keyboards. Justine Suissa, who provided vocals on "Autumn Tactics" from Behind the Sun, toured with the band in 2000. English electronic producer Tom Jankiewicz (Tomski) was a frequent musical collaborator with Chicane from 1995 to 2006, and he also played keyboards and engineered in the band during that period. Session drummers in the band, notably, have included Mark Pusey (Eminem, Natasha Bedingfield, Sway), Shovell from M People, Simon Merry (Natalie Imbruglia) and David Barbarossa from Bow Wow Wow.
The band's current line-up since 2006 consists of the following musicians:
Nick Bracegirdle (Chicane) – keyboards, programming
Natasha Andrews, Kristin Hosein or Jaki Graham – vocals
Simon Small – guitars
Carl Holt – bass
Mark Pusey (2005–present) – drums
Simon Merry – drums (2009–present)
Though the band's singers usually substitute for the original vocalists from the song due to the latter's other recording commitments, there have been exceptions; for example, both Maire Brennan and Bryan Adams performed live with the band in Ibiza in 2000. The former took place at one of the annual Ibiza festivals held by MTV at the turn of the 2000s, while the latter took place at a heavily promoted concert hosted by Xtravaganza on 4 August at Privilege Ibiza, which was attended by over 7000, including Bono and Noel Gallagher.
Chicane has also played at major European music festivals, such as the Glastonbury Festival and Creamfields in England and the Roskilde Festival in Denmark; as well as Red Square in Moscow.
Chicane has performed remixes (specifically, the "Tomski vs. Disco Citizens" remixes) live, as shown by a track listing from Chicane's 22 January 2000 performance at the Palladium in Cologne, Germany. This is unusual in that remixes, as products of audio editing, are not generally considered instrumental performances in their own right. At least some aspects of this are credited to Tomski himself, on stage.
Bracegirdle also made a guest appearance live with Bryan Adams at the 2000 Slane Concert, as seen on Adams' Live at Slane Castle DVD.
Discography
Studio albums
Far from the Maddening Crowds (1997)
Behind the Sun (2000)
Somersault (2007)
Giants (2010)
Thousand Mile Stare (2012)
The Sum of Its Parts (2015)
The Place You Can't Remember, the Place You Can't Forget (2018)
Everything We Had to Leave Behind (2021)
Nevertheless (2023)
References
External links
VK-community
Official Bebo Page
Review of Live Performance at Ministry of Sound (2013) by TranceFixxed
Chicane biography at MN2S Booking Agency
1971 births
Ambient musicians
Chill-out musicians
English record producers
English house musicians
Living people
People from Chalfont St Giles
Musicians from Buckinghamshire
English trance musicians
Progressive house musicians
Electronic dance music DJs |
421825 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa%20Waiver%20Program | Visa Waiver Program | The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) is a program of the United States federal government that allows nationals of specific countries to travel to the United States for tourism, business, or while in transit for up to 90 days without having to obtain a visa. It applies to all fifty U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, which also have an additional program with waivers for more nationalities; American Samoa has a similar but separate program.
All the countries selected for the VWP by the U.S. government are generally regarded as developed countries, with high-income economies and a very high Human Development Index.
Other visa waivers exist for citizens of certain jurisdictions.
Eligible countries
To be eligible for a visa waiver under the VWP, the traveler seeking admission to the United States must be a national of a country that has been designated by the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, as a "program country". Permanent residents of designated countries who are not their nationals do not qualify for a visa waiver. The criteria for designation as program countries are specified in Section 217(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (). The criteria stress passport security, a nonimmigrant visa refusal rate below 3%, and a reciprocal visa waiver for U.S. nationals, among other requirements.
As of 2023, nationals of 41 countries are eligible for visa-free entry into the United States under the VWP:
Requirements
Passport
All visitors from VWP countries must hold a biometric passport.
All travelers must have individual passports. It is not acceptable (for the VWP) for children to be included on a parent's passport, although the practice is rare today.
In principle, the passport must be valid for six months beyond the expected date of departure from the United States. However, the United States has agreements with a large number of countries to waive this requirement, including all VWP countries except Brunei.
Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA)
All incoming passengers who intend to take advantage of the Visa Waiver Program are required to apply for a travel authorization through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) online before departure to the United States, preferably at least 72 hours (3 days) in advance. This requirement was announced on June 3, 2008 and is intended to bolster U.S. security by pre-screening participating VWP passengers against terrorist or no-fly lists and databases. It is similar to Australia's Electronic Travel Authority system. The authorization is mandatory for participating VWP nationals before traveling to the United States, but as with formal visas this does not guarantee admission into the United States since final admission eligibility is determined at U.S. ports of entry by CBP officers.
ESTA has an application fee of $4, and if approved, an additional fee of $17 is charged, for a total of $21. An approved ESTA is valid for up to two years or until the traveler's passport expires, whichever comes first, and is valid for multiple entries into the United States.
When traveling to the United States by air or sea under the VWP with ESTA, the person must be traveling on a participating commercial carrier and hold a valid return or onward ticket, dated within 90 days. The VWP does not apply at all (i.e. a visa is required) if a passenger arrives via air or sea on an unapproved carrier. ESTA is also required for travel by land.
Prior travel or dual nationality in certain countries
Since 2016, those who have previously been in Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen on or after March 1, 2011, or in Cuba on or after January 12, 2021, or who are dual nationals of Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan or Syria, are not eligible to travel under the VWP. However, those who traveled to such countries as diplomats, military, journalists, humanitarian workers or legitimate businessmen may have this ineligibility waived by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Other requirements
Applicants for admission under the Visa Waiver Program:
Must have complied with the conditions of all previous admissions to the United States and have not been found ineligible for a U.S. visa.
Must never have been convicted of, or arrested for, an offense or crime involving moral turpitude or a controlled substance, or two or more crimes with a maximum aggregate sentence of five years' imprisonment or more, no matter how long ago. National regulations which normally expunge criminal records after a certain length of time (e.g. the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 in the UK) do not apply.
Must not be otherwise inadmissible to the United States, such as on health or national security grounds.
Must be intending to visit the United States for a purpose of tourism, business or transit.
Applicants should display social and economic ties which bind them to their country of origin or may be refused entry.
Having been arrested or convicted does not in itself make a person ineligible to use the Visa Waiver Program. However, some U.S. embassies advise such persons to apply for a tourist visa even though there is no legal obligation to do so.
Those who do not meet the requirements for the Visa Waiver Program must obtain a U.S. visitor visa from a U.S. embassy or consulate.
Restrictions
Visitors under the VWP may stay for up to 90 days in the United States and cannot request an extension of the original allowed period of stay (this practice is allowed to those holding regular visas). However, VWP visitors may seek to adjust status on the basis of either marriage to a U.S. citizen or an application for asylum.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers determine admissibility upon the traveler's arrival. If one seeks to enter the United States under the VWP and is denied entry by a CBP officer at a port of entry, there is no path to appeal or review of the denial of entry.
Travelers can leave to neighboring jurisdictions (Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean), but will not be granted another 90 days after reentry in the United States; instead they are readmitted to the United States for the remaining days granted on their initial entry. Transit through the United States is generally permitted, if the total time in the United States, Canada, Mexico and adjacent islands is less than 90 days. However, if for example the traveler is transiting the United States on the way to a 6-month stay in Canada, the VWP cannot be used, as the total time in the United States, Canada, Mexico and adjacent islands will be over 90 days. In this case the traveler should apply for a B-1/B-2 visa, or a transit visa.
There are restrictions on the type of employment-related activities allowed. Meetings and conferences in relation to the travelers' profession, line of business or employer in their home country are generally acceptable, but most forms of "gainful employment" are not. There are however poorly-classifiable exceptions such as persons performing professional services in the United States for a non-U.S. employer, and persons installing, servicing and repairing commercial or industrial equipment or machinery pursuant to a contract of sale. Performers (such as actors and musicians) who plan on performing live or taping scenes for productions in their country of origin, as well as athletes participating in an athletic event, are likewise not allowed to use the VWP for their respective engagements and are instead required to have an O or P visa prior to arrival. Foreign media representatives and journalists on assignment are required to have a nonimmigrant media (I) visa.
History
Congress passed legislation in 1986 to create the Visa Waiver Program with the aim of facilitating tourism and short-term business visits to the United States, and allowing the United States Department of State to focus consular resources on addressing higher risks. The United Kingdom became the first country to participate in the Visa Waiver Program in July 1988, followed by Japan in December 1988. In July 1989, France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and West Germany were added to the VWP.
In 1991, more European countries joined the Program – Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway, San Marino and Spain – as well as New Zealand (the first country from Oceania). In 1993, Brunei became the second Asian country to be admitted to the Program.
On April 1, 1995, Ireland was added to the VWP. In 1996, Australia and Argentina (the first Latin American country) joined, although Argentina was later removed in 2002. On September 30, 1997, Slovenia was added. On August 9, 1999, Portugal, Singapore and Uruguay joined the program, although Uruguay was subsequently removed in 2003.
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the George W. Bush administration decided to tighten entry requirements into the United States, as a result of which legislation was passed requiring foreign visitors entering under the Visa Waiver Program to present a machine-readable passport upon arrival starting from October 1, 2003, and a biometric passport from October 26, 2004. However, as a number of VWP countries still issued non-machine readable passports (for example, more than a third of French and Spanish passport holders held a non-machine readable version), the implementation of this rule was postponed to October 26, 2004, with the exception of Belgian nationals, as there were concerns about the security and integrity of Belgian passports. Likewise, the biometric passport requirement was also postponed to October 26, 2005, only to be further postponed by another year to October 26, 2006 at the request of the European Union, which raised concerns about the number of participating countries which would have been able to make the deadline. When the new rule came into force on that day, three countries (Andorra, Brunei and Liechtenstein) had not yet started issuing biometric passports.
In November 2006, the U.S. government announced that plans for an "Electronic Travel Authorization" program (officially named "Electronic System for Travel Authorization") would be developed so that VWP travelers can give advance information on their travels to the United States. In return, they will be given authorization electronically to travel to the United States, although it does not guarantee admission to the United States. This program is modeled on the Electronic Travel Authority scheme that has been used in Australia for many years.
Argentina's participation in the VWP was terminated in 2002 in light of the financial crisis taking place in that country and its potential effect on mass emigration and unlawful overstay of its nationals in the United States by way of the VWP. Uruguay's participation in the program was revoked in 2003 for similar reasons. While a country's political and economic standing does not directly determine its eligibility, it is widely believed that nationals of politically stable and economically developed nations would not have much incentive to illegally seek employment and violate their visa while in the United States, risks that consular officers seriously consider in approving or denying a visa.
Road map
After the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, both the newly admitted countries and EU agencies began intensive lobbying efforts to include those new countries in the VWP. The U.S. government initially responded to those efforts by developing bilateral strategies with 19 candidate countries known as the Visa Waiver road map process. The U.S. government began to accept the possibility of departing from the original country designation criteria – which had been contained within immigration law per se – and to expand them by adding political criteria, with the latter being able to override the former. This development began first with Bill S.2844 which explicitly named Poland as the only country to be added to the VWP, and continued as an amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (S.2611), whose Sec. 413, Visa Waiver Program Expansion, defined broader criteria that would apply to any EU country that provided "material support" to the multinational forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the definition of that "material support" would be met again only by Poland and Romania, a fact that was not favorably received by the other EU candidate countries. Ironically, Poland remained the only Central European country that was not a participating nation in the VWP until 2019, due to a visa refusal rate above the critical threshold of 3%.
During his visit to Estonia in November 2006, President Bush announced his intention "to work with our Congress and our international partners to modify our visa waiver program". In 2006, the Secure Travel and Counterterrorism Partnership Bill was introduced in the Senate but no action was taken and that bill, as well as a similar one introduced in the House the following year, died after two years of inactivity. The bill would have directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish a pilot program to expand the visa waiver program for up to five new countries that were cooperating with the United States on security and counterterrorism matters.
A June 2007 Hudson Institute Panel stressed the urgency of the inclusion of Central Europe in the VWP: "An inexplicable policy that is causing inestimable damage to the United States with its new Central and Eastern European NATO allies is the region's exclusion from the visa waiver program. As Helle Dale wrote in the spring issue of European Affairs: "Meanwhile, the problem is fueling anti-U.S. antagonisms and a perception of capricious discrimination by U.S. bureaucrats ---and damping the visits to the United States of people from countries with whom Washington would like to improve commercial and intellectual ties. Meanwhile, horror stories abound from friends and diplomats from Central and Eastern Europe about the problems besetting foreigners seeking to visit the United States. In fact bringing up the subject of visas with any resident of those countries is like waving a red flag before a bull." Visa waiver must be satisfactorily addressed and resolved at long last."
The Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 allowed the inclusion of new countries in the VWP with a visa refusal rate up to 10% (up from the standard requirement of 3%) if they satisfied certain other conditions, from October 2008. With the relaxed criteria, eight countries were added to the program: Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and South Korea in November 2008, and Malta in December 2008. Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek called it "a removal of the last relict of Communism and the Cold War". However, from July 2009, the authority to include countries with such higher visa refusal rate became conditioned on the implementation of a system capable of matching the entry and exit from the United States of travelers under the VWP using biometric identifiers. As such system was not implemented, the visa refusal rate requirement returned to 3%.
Greece officially joined the program on April 5, 2010.
On October 2, 2012, Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the inclusion of Taiwan into the program effectively as of November 1, 2012. Only holders of passports with a national identification number can benefit from the visa waiver.
In 2013 there was conflict over the United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013 whose Senate version specified that satisfaction of the requirements regarding reciprocal travel privileges for U.S. nationals would be subject to security concerns. Many members of the House of Representatives opposed the security language because it seemed to validate Israel's tendency to turn away Arab Americans without giving any reason. None of the other 37 countries in the visa waiver program had such an exemption.
Chief Executive of Hong Kong Donald Tsang raised the issue of allowing holders of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passports or British National (Overseas) passports to participate in the VWP during his visit to the United States in 2011, but proposals to allow this have not been successful.
Hong Kong is the only jurisdiction with a higher Human Development Index than the United States whose citizens cannot enjoy the program. The visa refusal rate for Hong Kong dropped to 1.7% for HKSAR passport and 2.6% for British National (Overseas) passport in 2012. Hong Kong met all VWP criteria but did not qualify at the time because it was not legally a separate country, despite having its own passports and independent judicial system, monetary system and immigration control. The former Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Donald Tsang, raised the issue with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during his visit to the United States in 2011 and was met with positive response. On May 16, 2013, a bipartisan amendment bill was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee but not ratified into law. On August 10, 2015, the U.S. Consul General to Hong Kong and Macau, Clifford Hart, said during an interview with South China Morning Post that the visa waiver was "not happening anytime soon", as the Visa Waiver law required the participant to be a "sovereign state" and Hong Kong was not independent, thus ending the possibility of Hong Kong joining the program. He also denied that the failed lobbying effort of the HKSAR government on this issue was a result of the refusal of detaining Edward Snowden in 2013.
Chile joined the VWP on March 31, 2014.
As of December 2018, ESTA is no longer approved in real-time to qualifying passengers and passengers are required to apply no later than 72 hours before departure.
In July 2019, U.S. Ambassador to Poland Georgette Mosbacher stated that "Poland would fully qualify for the Visa Waiver Program within 3 to 6 months after September 2019" depending on bureaucratic procedures. On October 4, 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that the Department of State had formally nominated Poland for entry into the Visa Waiver Program. On November 11, 2019 Poland officially joined the Program and became its 39th member.
On February 12, 2021, U.S. Embassy in Croatia's Chargé d'Affaires, a.i. Victoria J. Taylor, announced on Twitter that the refusal rate for business and tourist visas in Croatia in 2020 dropped to 2.69%, marking a step forward for Croatia to join the VWP "in the near future." On August 2, 2021, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that Croatia had been formally nominated to join the VWP. On September 28, 2021, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas officially announced that Croatia would join the VWP before December 1, 2021. Croatia joined the VWP on October 23, 2021.
On July 6, 2023, the validity of new ESTA applications by nationals of Brunei was reduced to one year.
On September 27, 2023, Israel was designated to join the VWP by November 30, 2023. Israel joined the VWP on October 19, 2023.
Hungary's participation
In October 2017, U.S. officials discovered a massive passport fraud scheme in Hungary, in which hundreds of non-Hungarians obtained genuine Hungarian passports. A U.S. Department of Homeland Security report (obtained by the Washington Post and reported in May 2018) showed that of approximately 700 non-Hungarians who had obtained the passports, 85 had attempted to travel to the United States under false identites, 65 had been admitted to the United States through the VWP, and (as of October 2017) approximately 30 remained in the United States despite the efforts of U.S. authorities to locate and deport them. The fraud was enabled by a policy implemented in 2011 by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán; under the policy, the Hungarian government provided passports to ethnic Hungarians living outside Hungary, who could prove that one of their ancestors was a Hungarian citizen, with the goal of expediting naturalization. More than a million people obtained Hungarian citizenship through the program. Because the program lacked stringent identity-verification procedures, it was abused by bad actors, including criminals and applicants who used forged documents to falsely claim Hungarian descent. Some who received Hungarian passports under the program were criminals without any connection to Hungary.
U.S. officials were alarmed by the risks created by the program, including the risk that the passports might be used in drug smuggling, organized crime, illegal immigration, espionage, or terrorism. In October 2017, the U.S. government downgraded Hungary's status in the VWP to "provisional" and sought to develop a "cooperative action plan" within 45 days. U.S. and Hungarian officials engaged in a dialogue for several years on resolving the security risks, but Hungarian authorities failed to resolve the issues to the U.S. government's satisfaction. As a result, beginning in 2020 and 2021, the U.S. government barred Hungarian passport-holders who were not born in Hungary from obtaining ESTA pre-travel authorizations. In August 2023, the U.S. government imposed additional restrictions on Hungary's participation in the VWP: the ESTA validity period for Hungarian passport-holders was reduced from two years to one year, and each ESTA on a Hungarian passport would be valid for only one entry to the United States.
Aspiring countries
Of the 19 road map countries listed in 2007, 12 have been admitted to the VWP. As of 2023, the U.S. government cited seven countries aspiring to join the VWP:
In 2014, the European Union pressured the United States to extend the Visa Waiver Program to its five member states that were not yet included in it (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania). In November 2014, the Bulgarian government announced that it would not ratify the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership unless the United States lifted the visa requirement for its nationals. Due to incomplete U.S. reciprocity, in March 2017 the European Parliament approved a non-binding resolution calling on the European Commission to suspend the visa exemption for U.S. nationals to travel the Schengen Area. On May 2, 2017, the European Commission decided not act on the resolution and hoped to restart full visa reciprocity negotiations for the remaining EU member states with the new U.S. administration. In 2019, as mentioned above, Poland, which had been the last Schengen Area country not yet included in the VWP, was admitted to the program. In October 2020, the European Parliament repeated its request for the European Commission to suspend the visa exemption for U.S. nationals, and in March 2021, it filed a judicial action against the European Commission for its failure to act on the subject. In 2021, Croatia was admitted to the VWP before joining the Schengen Area in 2023. On March 15, 2023, Democratic senator Dick Durbin introduced a bill that would allow including Romania in the VWP regardless of the program requirements. In September 2023, the Court of Justice of the European Union dismissed the judicial action brought by the European Parliament, ruling that the European Commission was not obligated to suspend the visa exemption for U.S. nationals. As of 2023, three EU member states (Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania) are still not included in the VWP, and nationals of Hungary born outside Hungary are automatically denied ESTA due to a passport fraud scheme described above.
U.S. territories
The Visa Waiver Program applies to all permanently inhabited U.S. territories except American Samoa.
Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands
Although the U.S. Visa Waiver Program also applies to the U.S. territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, and therefore nationals of VWP countries may travel to these territories with an ESTA, both territories have additional visa waiver programs for certain nationalities. The Guam–CNMI Visa Waiver Program, first enacted in October 1988 and periodically amended, permits nationals from 12 countries in Asia, Europe and Oceania to enter Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands as tourists for up to 45 days without the need to obtain a U.S. visa or an ESTA. A parole policy also allows nationals of China visa-free access to the Northern Mariana Islands for up to 14 days.
American Samoa
U.S. visa policy does not apply to American Samoa, as it has its own entry requirements and maintains control of its own borders. Hence, neither a U.S. visa nor an ESTA can be used to enter American Samoa. If required, an entry permit or electronic authorization must be obtained from the Department of Legal Affairs of American Samoa.
Nationals of Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, and countries in the U.S. Visa Waiver Program may visit American Samoa for up to 30 days without an entry permit. However, if arriving by air, they must apply online for an electronic authorization called "OK Board", at least 3 business days before travel, for a fee of $40. Nationals of Samoa may also apply for a similar electronic authorization to visit American Samoa for up to 7 days, for a fee of $10.
Nationals of other countries need an entry permit, which must be requested by a local sponsor at the Immigration Office of the Department of Legal Affairs of American Samoa.
Statistics
Admissions
Visa refusal rate
To qualify for the Visa Waiver Program, a country must have had a visa refusal rate of less than 3% for the previous year. This refusal rate is based on applications for B visas, for tourism and business purposes. B visas are adjudicated based on applicant interviews, which generally last between 60 and 90 seconds.
Overstay rate
The table below shows the overstay rate, which is the portion of visitors arriving under the Visa Waiver Program who remained in the United States longer than the maximum allowed stay of 90 days. Some of these visitors later left the United States or legalized their immigration status.
Other visa waivers
Nationals of neighboring jurisdictions
Separate from the Visa Waiver Program, permits the Attorney General and the Secretary of State (acting jointly) to waive visa requirements for admission to the United States in nonimmigrant status for nationals of foreign contiguous territories or adjacent islands or for residents of those territories or islands who have a common nationality with those nationals. The regulations relating to such admissions can be found at .
Under this provision, nationals of the following jurisdictions may travel to the United States without a visa:
Nationals of the Bahamas do not need a visa to travel to the United States if they apply for admission at a U.S. preclearance facility located in the Bahamas. Applicants 14 years of age or older must present a certificate issued by the Royal Bahamas Police Force indicating no criminal record.
British Overseas Territories citizens of Bermuda do not need a visa to visit the United States under most circumstances for up to 180 days.
British Overseas Territories citizens of the British Virgin Islands may travel without a visa to the U.S. Virgin Islands. They may also continue travel to other parts of the United States if they present a certificate issued by the Royal Virgin Islands Police Department indicating no criminal record.
Nationals of Canada do not need a visa to visit the United States under most circumstances. In addition, under the USMCA (and earlier NAFTA), they may work under a simplified procedure.
British Overseas Territories citizens of the Cayman Islands do not need a visa if they travel directly from the territory to the United States and present a police certificate indicating no criminal record.
Some nationals of Mexico do not need a visa to travel to the United States: government officials not permanently assigned to the United States and their accompanying family members, holding diplomatic or official passports, for stays of up to six months; members of the Kickapoo tribes of Texas or Oklahoma, holding Form I-872, American Indian Card; and crew members of Mexican airlines operating in the United States. Other nationals of Mexico may travel to the United States with a Border Crossing Card, which functions as a visa and has similar requirements. Under the USMCA (and earlier NAFTA), they may also work under a simplified procedure.
British Overseas Territories citizens of the Turks and Caicos Islands do not need a visa if they travel directly from the territory to the United States and present a police certificate indicating no criminal record.
Restrictions on the use of the Visa Waiver Program do not affect this class of travelers unless separately provided for by statute or regulation. For example, a Canadian citizen who has briefly overstayed a previous visit to the United States (by less than 180 days) will still not require a visa for future visits, while a VWP national who overstays will become ineligible for the VWP for life and will need a visa for future visits. ESTA is not required from British Overseas Territories citizens using one of the above waivers with the respective territory's passport, but it is required if they use the VWP with a British citizen passport.
Until 2003, this visa waiver was granted not only to nationals of those countries and territories, but also to permanent residents of Bermuda and Canada who were nationals of countries in the Commonwealth of Nations or Ireland.
Citizens of freely associated states
See also
Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA)
Visa policy of the United States
US-VISIT
Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative
Notes
References
External links
Visa Waiver Program, Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State.
Visa Waiver Program, U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA)
Visa Waiver Program: Passport Requirements Timeline, Department of Homeland Security.
VWP Signatory Carriers list as of 1 June 2016, US Customs & Border Protections.
Visa Waiver Program, Congressional Research Service.
Visa policy of the United States
United States Department of Homeland Security |
421841 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society%20of%20Communist%20Czechoslovakia | Society of Communist Czechoslovakia | Czechoslovakia, of all the East European countries, entered the postwar era with a relatively balanced social structure and an equitable distribution of resources. Despite some poverty, overall it was a country of relatively well-off workers, small-scale producers, farmers, and a substantial middle class. Nearly half the population was in the middle-income bracket. It was a balanced and relatively prosperous Czechoslovakia that carried nationalization and income redistribution further than any other East European country. By the mid-1960s, the complaint was that leveling had gone too far. Earning differentials between blue-collar and white-collar workers were lower than in any other country in Eastern Europe. Further, equitable income distribution was combined in the late 1970s with relative prosperity. Along with East Germany and Hungary, Czechoslovakia enjoyed one of the highest standards of living of any of the Warsaw Pact countries through the 1980s.
Even in Czechoslovakia, where the party's pursuit of socialist equality was thorough, the "classless" society turned out to be highly diverse.
In the mid-1980s, Czechoslovak censuses divided the population into several occupational groups: workers, other employees, members of various cooperatives (principally agricultural cooperatives), small farmers, self-employed tradesmen and professionals, and capitalists. Of these categories, "other employees" was the most diverse, encompassing everyone from low-level clerical workers to cabinet ministers. "Workers" were those whose jobs were primarily manual and industrial. There were well-known distinctions, explained below, between:
workers (manual or low-level clerical employees),
agricultural employees, and
the intelligentsia (whose work is primarily mental and requires more education).
The workers
In 1984 workers made up about one-half of the economically active population and were beneficiaries of policies geared toward maintaining the people's standard of living. According to many observers, Czechoslovakia's internal stability rested on an unspoken bargain between workers and the ruling KSC: relative material security in return for acquiescence to continued Soviet domination.
Much of working-class life reflected the regime's efforts to increase labor productivity without precipitating major labor unrest. Virtually full employment did not make the task easier. In 1984, nearly half the population worked. Some 85% of working-age women were employed (not including those on maternity leave), and there were almost 141,000 full-time university students. Working age for women was from fifteen through fifty-four, and for men it was from fifteen through fifty-nine. By the end of the 1970s, the labor shortage was severe enough for officials to call for greater efforts to employ "internal reserves" of labor, i.e., the partially disabled (of whom nearly one-third were already employed), full-time students, and farmers (during agricultural off-seasons). Voluntary brigades of students and apprentices supplied agricultural (harvest) and other labor during summer months. In Czechoslovakia, as in other socialist countries, virtually full employment often disguises underemployment. Large numbers of people work in positions below their qualifications. This is the result of different factors: some people are reluctant to move to other parts of the country to find work; politically and ideologically "objectionable" people must often turn to menial work; and politically "correct" people hold jobs for which they are not fully qualified. At many enterprises, instead of streamlining operations and dismissing employees whose job performance is unsatisfactory, managers merely shift workers to other positions or juggle employment statistics.
The party's compulsion to avoid labor unrest, enterprise managers' need to meet (or at least approach) production quotas, and a pervasive shortage of labor define the social dynamics of the workplace. Workers have relatively secure employment and income but lack sufficient consumer goods to absorb their income (the rate of saving is extremely high). Nor do workers have a substantive role in organizing work; Ota Šik, noted economic reformer during the 1960s, characterized the Czechoslovak worker as "alienated from the production process, from the fruits of labor, and from the management of industrial enterprises."
Workers' complaints have changed over the years as labor has become more scarce.
In the 1950s real wages declined, resulting in periodic work stoppages.
The 1953 currency reform sparked protests and demonstrations in major industrial centers that were little short of riots. Throughout the decade, party leaders complained about workers' "trade unionist" and "anarcho-syndicalist" attitudes and their "take what you can" mentality. Those arrested in the 1953 demonstrations were denounced as "bourgeois elements dressed up in overalls."
During the Prague Spring of 1968, workers organized to support demands for political liberalization and more representative trade unions.
By the late 1970s, forced overtime had become the workers' most insistent complaint, followed by poor working conditions. These complaints were coupled with steadfast opposition to linking wages with gains in productivity. Workers most frequently called for compliance with the labor code, which limited compulsory overtime (the maximum workweek was supposed to be forty-six hours) and provided for work safety regulations.
One solution to the labor shortage was foreign manpower from fellow socialist nations. For a long time, Poles provided the largest percentage of foreign manpower. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, the proportion of Vietnamese workers, brought in by the allied government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, grew rapidly. By the end of 1982, there were approximately 26,000 Vietnamese workers in Czechoslovakia, about 0.3% of the total manual work force, including apprentices. Reasons given for the rapid expansion of the Vietnamese contingent ranged from the Czechoslovak government's interest in training qualified labor for a friendly socialist country, to repayment of Vietnamese war debt, to the labor surplus in Vietnam. Problems arose as the number of Vietnamese increased drastically and as a program of merely hard work replaced what was to have been a program for training the Vietnamese in work skills. Other foreigners who worked in Czechoslovakia came from Cuba, Laos, the Mongolian People's Republic, and Hungary. Poles and Hungarians generally worked in their respective border areas.
Most women in Czechoslovakia worked, a reflection in part of the labor shortage and in part of the socialist belief that employment for women is the answer to inequality between the sexes. Although women in Czechoslovakia have had a long history of employment (they were over one-third of the labor force in 1930), the postwar surge in female employment has been truly dramatic. Four-fifths of the workers who entered the labor force from 1948 through 1975 were women. By the end of 1976, about 87% of working-age women had jobs; in 1984 about 90% of women in their reproductive years were in the labor force.
In 1983 women remained concentrated in the traditional fields of female employment. Women's salaries have lagged behind those of men throughout the socialist era. Only 6 to 7% of middle and upper management positions were held by women. A number of factors account for this continuing inequality.
Agricultural Workers
Rural society in the 1980s was a combination of cooperatives (approximately 73% of the agricultural labor force), state farms (18%), and private farms (9%). This represented a dramatic change from the First Republic with its politically active middle-sized farmers, small landholders, and differentiated labor force. Collectivized agriculture has not lacked occupational specialists, but there is no doubt that the socialist regime has streamlined rural society. Differences have persisted, but a dramatic leveling has taken place.
Collectivization began in 1949 with the Unified Agricultural Cooperatives Act. The KSC pushed collectivization efforts early in the 1950s and again later in the decade. Large landholders unwilling to join cooperatives and unwise enough to demur were condemned as "kulaks" and evicted without compensation. Subsequent criticism was muted. By 1960, when collectivization was essentially complete, 90% of all agricultural land was in the state sector—a proportion that slowly increased to 95% in 1985. During the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, the number of cooperatives declined. Land was not returned to private cultivation, but rather the cooperative enterprises themselves were consolidated.
Farmers suffered through the 1950s: compulsory collectivization took their property, and the 1953 currency reform eradicated their savings. By the early 1960s, farm laborers worked longer than their nonagricultural counterparts and earned an average of 15% less. During the late 1960s and 1970s, agricultural earnings rose rapidly. Since the mid-1970s, the incomes of cooperative farm members and industrial workers have been comparable. So dramatic was the improvement that in a 1968 poll more than two-thirds of cooperative farm members preferred collectivized agricultural production to private farming.
The disparity between urban and rural living conditions narrowed in the 1970s. Government planners focused on improving rural day-care facilities; bringing cooperative and state-farm pensions to parity with those of other workers; and increasing the medical, educational, and shopping facilities available to rural dwellers. There was significant construction and renovation of rural housing. The number of new housing units available to cooperative members rose dramatically in the 1960s and then leveled off, although the number fluctuated from year to year. The general improvement in the amenities did not benefit agricultural workers alone; in the early 1970s, over 40% of all industrial workers lived in the countryside.
One result of increased incomes and improved rural living conditions was a rise in the educational level of the agricultural labor force. The percentage of cooperative members with a secondary-school education increased elevenfold from 1960 to the end of 1978, and that of members with a university degree increased thirteenfold.
Intelligentsia
By convention, Marxist theorists subdivided the intelligentsia into:
the creative (writers, artists, and journalists),
the professional (lawyers, educators, physicians, civil servants, and party bureaucrats), and
the technical (engineers - directors and deputy directors of socialist enterprises, chairmen of agricultural cooperatives, and managers of retail shops, hotels, restaurants, services, and housing).
The year 1948 saw a turnover in civil service personnel (especially the police) and a substantial influx of workers into political and managerial positions.
The 1950s purges struck hardest at the party faithful, i.e., the most direct beneficiaries of the 1948 takeover. The upheaval of nationalization and collectivization efforts that went further than anywhere else in Eastern Europe, coupled with two currency reforms, signaled a flux in economic fortunes during the first decade of communist rule. A Czech, for example, who was a chief executive in industry in 1948, worked as a carpenter for several years thereafter, served a number of years in prison, and then retrained for a career in law was not exceptional.
In early 1970s, over 25,000 government and trade union officials were replaced. All told, perhaps 150,000 professionals were unable to work in their fields by the end of the decade. The purges included technical and managerial personnel, as well as writers, artists, and KSC members active in the reform movement.
Estimates at the high end suggested that, from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, some 400,000 members of the intelligentsia joined the ranks of manual laborers.
Technical intelligentsia
In the mid-1980s, the technical intelligentsia occupied an ambiguous position in the decision-making hierarchy. On the one hand, their jobs often demanded considerable technical expertise; on the other hand, decision making in all sectors had a political component under communist rule. The technical intelligentsia had to reconcile the requirements of technical efficiency with those of political orthodoxy. From the KSC's perspective, the problem was to ensure a politically reliable corps of technical experts:
Throughout the 1970s, those selected for political compliance (versus training or expertise) predominated among the technical intelligentsia. When a party functionary was unable to meet the demands of his or her position, the custom was to call in a technical expert (even if not a party member) for assistance. KSC hard-liners consistently blocked efforts to reinstate reformist managers deposed after 1968.
Calls for more efficient management and periodic "reassessments" of managerial personnel accompanied changes in the ranks of the technical intelligentsia. In 1980 Federal Finance Minister Leopold Ler suggested that failure to meet production goals would be reflected in bonuses given to management and went so far as to intimate that managers might be dismissed for ineptitude. There was a concerted effort on the part of officialdom to make clear to managers that simple political compliance—adequate to ensure one's employment in the early 1970s—would have to be accompanied by efficiency in production in the 1980s.
Creative intelligentsia
As for the country's creative intelligentsia the KSC takeover ushered in the era of Stalinist socialist realism in Czechoslovakia's arts. It was a movement with strong overtones of Russian chauvinism and a deep anti-Western bias evident in a readiness to denounce anything remotely cosmopolitan as bourgeois, decadent, or both. One suspects that the country that had given world literature Švejk was particularly unpromising ground for Socialist Realism. A blind optimism coupled with revolutionary fervor are the key components of this "aesthetic," portraying life as it should be according to Marxist theory, rather than as it actually is.
In 1949, the KSC at its Ninth Party Congress issued "directives for new socialist culture." The congress declared that "literary and artistic production is an important agent of the ideological and cultural rebirth in our country, and it is destined to play a great role in the socialist education of the masses." Some arts maintained their tradition of excellence throughout the era. Theater productions relied on the classics for their repertoire. Czech filmmakers relied on anti-Nazi, World War II plots to produce works of world renown in the 1960s. This was and has continued to be a safe topic. But writers were a perennial source of consternation for the authorities. Officials of the Novotny regime periodically denounced them for "unprincipled liberalism." Those placed under interdict wrote, as the phrase went, "for the drawer"; some, like Novomesky, were sentenced to long prison terms.
In the 1970s, the regime's policies toward the creative intelligentsia were characterized by a compulsion to control creative activity, coupled with an active paranoia. These policies continued into the 1980s. What motivated censors in ferreting out antisocialist sentiments was sometimes difficult to fathom. Karel Gott, a popular male singer, recorded a song portraying a conversation between a casual lover and his sweetheart that was banned from radio and television. Officialdom found the lyrics "I'll flip a coin when you ask if I'm sincere or not when I say I love you" to be insulting to Czechoslovak currency.
Artists and writers belonged to their own professional organizations. Nonmembers could practice their art as long as they were loyal to the regime.
Musicians and singers faced further constraints. In particular, the regime found the personal habits of many members of popular musical groups too divergent from socialist ideals and subjected them to considerable harassment.
Writers endured the greatest repression. For the purged, with limited exceptions, official publishing outlets were closed. In the meantime, the three writers' unions (Czechoslovak, Czech, and Slovak), and especially the Czech Writers' Union, set about grooming a younger generation of writers who, if not overwhelmingly devoted to socialism, were at least assiduously apolitical. In the middle to late 1970s, there was a semithaw: the authorities permitted purged writers to recant and, after a proper measure of self-criticism, publish again. For those who did not avail themselves of this chance, options were indeed limited. By the end of the decade, the government had stepped up efforts to keep Czechoslovak authors from publishing abroad. Those writers who wished to publish successfully at home kept to safe territory—science fiction, World War II novels, fantasy, and children's literature—all noncontroversial, basically apolitical genres. A complicated bureaucratic apparatus governed censorship at home. The most critical variable was whether a writer had been expelled from the KSC or simply dropped from its membership lists. There were various kinds and degrees of interdiction: some writers could translate but not write, others could write plays but nothing else, and so forth. Banned writers could sometimes publish their work if a "cover person" assumed authorship. Because "normalization" was characteristically milder in Slovakia, writers were sometimes able to publish works in Bratislava that the Prague censors found unacceptable. This was also partly because the Slovak minister of culture was himself a writer.
Associations
Historically, the right to form associations was first won in 1848, although the Habsburgs, realizing that they had opened a Pandora's box in their ethnically diverse empire, revoked it soon thereafter. The Czech lands regained this freedom in 1867. The Hungarians, however, offered more concerted opposition to Slovak efforts to organize. But Slovak emigres formed organizations wherever they went, and these associations agitated for Slovakia's inclusion in the First Republic.
In 1948 there were 6,000 to 7,000 clubs and societies in Czechoslovakia; these had long been integral to social life and national aspirations. A 1951 law gave the Ministry of Interior jurisdiction over associations, and in the 1960s there were only a few hundred societies still in existence. The right to form associations was limited, and the associations themselves were under strict KSC control. Cultural organizations operated under official auspices. Friendship leagues were particularly encouraged: Bulgarian-, Polish-, or Hungarian-Czechoslovak friendship societies could easily receive official approval. The regime particularly favored the Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship League, though its rank-and-file membership declined as a result of a surge of anti-Soviet sentiment after the 1968 invasion. There was official sponsorship for "Circles of Creativity" and "Houses of Enlightenment." Cultural societies for German or Hungarian minorities were acceptable, but religious organizations faced significantly greater restrictions. Any association that might play a role in politics or the economy (that could however remotely or tenuously be construed to threaten KSC domination) was out of the question.
The Prague Spring reinforced this mania for control over associations. The reform movement's potential was nowhere more threatening to the hegemony of the party than in the population's persistent demands for more truly representative organizations in every area of life. That the KSC membership was underrepresented in the popularly elected leadership of such organizations confirmed the conservatives' worst suspicions: this was a reform movement whose popular manifestations would prove difficult to control. The regime's response was to restrict associations still more.
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
see: Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Trade Unions
see: Trade Unions in Communist Czechoslovakia
Youth Organizations
see: Youth organizations in Communist Czechoslovakia
The Family
Families played a pivotal role, according to many observers, in transmitting just those characteristic Czech and Slovak values that have often been criticized by the regime, e.g., the Czech penchant for political pluralism and the Slovak devotion to Roman Catholicism.
The employment of the vast majority of married women of child-bearing age has favored three-generation extended families, in which grandparents (especially grandmothers) have helped women deal with the often conflicting demands of work and child upbringing:
Family cooperation remained important because child-care centers could not accommodate all children of working mothers, nor would the centers accept children who were ill. Extended families in which a relative played a significant role in child rearing were more common in households where women had a secondary school or university education. Presumably the presence of a grandparent permitted these women to continue an education or assume work responsibilities that might have been precluded if they bore the major share of child care.
Another factor encouraging extended family households has been Czechoslovakia's endemic housing shortage. Although the government's pronatalist policies favored married couples (especially those with children) in housing allocation, many young families (perhaps one-third) waited up to five years for their first separate apartment. Most of these families shared an apartment with a mother or mother-in-law. Divorced couples sometimes continued living together simply for want of other housing alternatives. For the elderly, who were expected to trade their apartments for smaller ones as spouses died and children left home, the situation was often difficult.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the number of marriages in Czechoslovakia declined while the number of divorces increased. Although marriages began to increase in 1982, the rate of divorce continued to climb; it rose from 14% in 1970 to 32% in 1985.
References
External links
RFE Czechoslovak Unit, Blinken Open Society Archives, Budapest
Demographics of Czechoslovakia
Society of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic |
421853 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii | Wii | The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, following the GameCube and is a seventh-generation console alongside Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3.
In developing the Wii, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata directed the company to avoid competing with Microsoft and Sony on computational graphics and power and instead to target a broader demographic of players through novel gameplay. Game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda led the console's development under the codename Revolution. The primary controller for the Wii is the Wii Remote, a wireless controller with both motion sensing and traditional controls which can be used as a pointing device towards the television screen or for gesture recognition. The Wii was Nintendo's first home console to directly support Internet connectivity, supporting both online games and for digital distribution of games and media applications through the Wii Shop Channel. The Wii also supports wireless connectivity with the Nintendo DS handheld console for selected games. Initial Wii models included full backward compatibility support for GameCube games and most accessories. Later in its lifecycle, two lower-cost Wii models were produced: a revised model with the same design as the original Wii but removed the GameCube compatibility features and the Wii Mini, a compact, budget redesign of the Wii which further removed features including online connectivity and SD card storage.
Because of Nintendo's reduced focus on computational power, the Wii and its games were less expensive to produce than its competitors. The Wii was extremely popular at launch, causing the system to be in short supply in some markets. A bundled game, Wii Sports, was considered the killer app for the console; other flagship games included entries in the Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, and Metroid series. Within a year of launch, the Wii became the best-selling seventh-generation console, and by 2013, had surpassed over 100 million units sold. Total lifetime sales of the Wii had reached over 101 million units, making it Nintendo's best-selling home console until it was surpassed by the Nintendo Switch in 2021. As of 2022, the Wii is the fifth-best-selling home console of all time.
The Wii repositioned Nintendo as a key player in the video game console marketplace. The introduction of motion-controlled games via the Wii Remote led both Microsoft and Sony to develop their own competing products—the Kinect and PlayStation Move, respectively. Nintendo found that, while the Wii had broadened the demographics that they wanted, the core gamer audience had shunned the Wii. The Wii's successor, the Wii U, sought to recapture the core gamer market with additional features atop the Wii. The Wii U was released in 2012, and Nintendo continued to sell both units through the following year. The Wii was formally discontinued in October 2013, though Nintendo continued to produce and market the Wii Mini through 2017, and offered a subset of the Wii's online services through 2019.
History
2001–2003: Development
Shortly after the release of the GameCube, Nintendo began conceptualizing their next console. The company's game designer Shigeru Miyamoto said that, in the early stages, they decided they would not aim to compete on hardware power, and would instead prioritize new gameplay concepts. Miyamoto cited Dance Dance Revolution's unique game controllers as inspiration for developing new input devices. Later in September 24, 2001, Nintendo began working with Gyration Inc., a firm that had developed several patents related to motion detection, to prototype future controllers using their licensed patents.
Over the next two years, sales of the GameCube languished behind its competitors—Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox. Satoru Iwata, who had been promoted to Nintendo's president in May 2002 following Hiroshi Yamauchi's retirement, recognized that Nintendo had not been keeping up with trends in the video game industry, such as adapting to online gaming. He also thought that video gaming had become too exclusive and wanted Nintendo to pursue gaming hardware and software that would appeal to all demographics. Nintendo's market analysis found that their focus on novel hardware had created consoles that made it difficult for third-party developers to create games for, hampering their position. One of the first major steps Iwata had made based on the company's research was directing the development of the Nintendo DS, a handheld incorporating dual screens including a touchscreen, to revitalize their handheld console line.
In 2003, Iwata met with Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda to discuss their market research. Iwata instructed Takeda "to go off the tech roadmap" for this console, but said it had to be appealing to mothers. Iwata wanted their next console to be capable of playing past Nintendo games, eliminating clutter in houses. Takeda led the team building the console's hardware components, and Miyamoto spearheaded the development of a new type of controller, based on Gyration's motion-sensing technology. Iwata had proposed that this new console use motion sensing to simplify the gaming interface, increasing appeal to all audiences. An initial prototype was completed within six months.
The Nintendo DS was said to have influenced the Wii's design, as the company found that the DS's novel two-screen interface had drawn in non-traditional players and wanted to replicate that on the new console. Designer Ken'ichiro Ashida noted, "We had the DS on our minds as we worked on the Wii. We thought about copying the DS's touch-panel interface and even came up with a prototype." The idea was eventually rejected because of the notion that the two gaming systems would be identical. Miyamoto also stated, "if the DS had flopped, we might have taken the Wii back to the drawing board."
2004–2005: Announcements
Prior to E3 2004, Iwata had referred to Nintendo's upcoming console offering as the GameCube Next (GCNext or GCN). Iwata first unveiled some details of Nintendo's new home console at E3 2004 under the codename "Revolution", as Iwata believed the console would revolutionize the gaming industry. BBC News' technology editor Alfred Hermida wrote that Nintendo's struggle to match Sony and Microsoft in the home console market made success crucial.
The console, still named "Revolution", was formally presented to the public at E3 2005. The motion controller interface had not yet been completed and was omitted from the unveiling. Iwata held the console above him with one hand to emphasize its size relative to its rivals. A smaller device meant it would draw on less power as to not overheat, and thus appealed to parents who were willing to have an attractive, small, power-efficient device in the living room. Iwata reportedly used a stack of three DVD cases as a size guide. The prototype held by Iwata was black, but at release the following year, the console was only available in white. In their book on the console, two Loyola University Chicago professors suggested that Nintendo was inviting comparisons with Apple's first iPod line.
Iwata later unveiled and demonstrated their current prototype of the Revolution controller at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2005. At this stage, the controller unit resembled the final Wii Remote device along with the separate Nunchuk attachment. Iwata demonstrated its motion sensing gameplay capabilities, and incorporated commentary from developers, such as Hideo Kojima and Yuji Horii, who had tested the controller and believed people would be drawn in by it.
The console's name was formally announced as the Wii in April 2006, a month prior to E3 2006. Nintendo's spelling of "Wii" (with two lower-case "i" characters) was intended to represent both two people standing side by side, and the Wii Remote and its Nunchuk. In the company's announcement, they stated: "Wii sounds like 'we', which emphasizes that the console is for everyone. Wii can easily be remembered by people around the world, no matter what language they speak. No confusion."
The name resulted in criticism and mockery. Forbes expressed a fear that the console would be seen as juvenile. BBC News reported the day after the name was announced that "a long list of puerile jokes, based on the name," had appeared on the Internet. Some video game developers and members of the press stated that they preferred "Revolution" over "Wii". Nintendo of America's Vice President of Corporate Affairs Perrin Kaplan defended the choice. President of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aimé justified the new name over Revolution by saying that they wanted something short, distinctive, and easily pronounceable for all cultures.
The Wii was made available for a press demonstration at E3 2006. Planned launch titles were announced at a press conference alongside the unveiling. At the same conference, Nintendo confirmed its plans to release the console by the end of 2006.
2006–2010: Launch
Nintendo announced the launch plans and prices for the Wii in September 2006. The console was first launched in the United States on November 19, 2006, for . Other regional release dates and prices included Japan on December 2 for , followed by Australasia on December 7 for , and was later launched on December 8 in the United Kingdom for and for the majority of Europe for . Nintendo planned to have around 30 Wii games available by the end of 2006, and anticipated shipping over 4 million consoles before the end of the year.
As part of its launch campaign, Nintendo promoted the Wii in North America through a series of television advertisements (directed by Academy Award winner Stephen Gaghan); its Internet ads used the slogans "Wii would like to play" and "Experience a new way to play". The ads began in November 2006 and had a budget of over for the year. The ads targeted a wider demographic compared to ads for other consoles, inviting parents and grandparents to play on the Wii. Nintendo hoped that its console would appeal to a wider demographic than that of others in the seventh generation. In December 2006, Satoru Iwata said that Nintendo did not think of themselves as "fighting Sony", but were focused on how they could expand the gaming demographic.
It took several years for the Wii to launch in other regions. It was released in South Korea on April 26, 2008, Taiwan on July 12, 2008, and Hong Kong on December 12, 2009. Nintendo had planned work with its localization partner iQue to release the Wii in China in 2008, but failed to meet the requirements to circumvent the ban on foreign-made consoles the Chinese government had put in place.
2011–2017: Successor and discontinuation
Nintendo announced the successor to the Wii, the Wii U, at E3 2011. Nintendo had recognized that the Wii had generally been shunned by the core gaming audience as it was perceived more as a casual gaming experience. The Wii U was aimed to draw the core audience back in with more advanced features atop the basic Wii technology. The Wii U features the Wii U GamePad, a controller with an embedded touchscreen and output 1080p high-definition graphics that serves as a secondary screen alongside the television. The Wii U is fully backward-compatible with Wii games and peripherals for the Wii, including the Wii Remote, Nunchuk controller and Wii Balance Board, and select Wii U games including support for these devices. The Wii U was first released on November 18, 2012 in North America; November 30, 2012 in Europe and Australia, and December 8, 2012 in Japan.
Nintendo continued to sell the revised Wii model and the Wii Mini alongside the Wii U during the Wii U's first release year. During 2013, Nintendo began to sunset certain Wii online functions as they pushed consumers towards the Wii U as a replacement system or towards the offline Wii Mini, though the Wii Shop Channel remained available. Nintendo discontinued production of the Wii in October 2013 after selling over 100 million units worldwide, though the company continued to produce the Wii Mini unit primarily for the North American market. The WiiConnect24 service and several channels based on that service were shuttered in June 2013. Support for online multiplayer games via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection were discontinued in May 2014, while the Wii Shop was closed in January 2019, effectively ending all online services for the console. The Wii Mini continued to be manufactured and sold until 2017.
Despite the Wii's discontinuation, some developers continued to produce Wii games well beyond 2013. Ubisoft released Just Dance games for the Wii up to Just Dance 2020 (2019). Vblank Entertainment's Shakedown: Hawaii along with Retro City Rampage DX are the most recent Wii games, which were released on July 9, 2020 (more than 13 years after the Wii's launch). On January 27, 2020, Nintendo announced that they will no longer repair any faulty Wii consoles in Japan starting on February 6 due to a scarcity of spare parts.
Hardware
Console
In building the Wii, Nintendo did not aim to outpace the performance of their competitors. Unlike the company's previous consoles, they built the Wii from commercial off-the-shelf hardware rather than seek out customized components. This helped to reduce the cost of the Wii system to consumers. Miyamoto said "Originally, I wanted a machine that would cost $100. My idea was to spend nothing on the console technology so all the money could be spent on improving the interface and software."
The console's central processing unit is a 32-bit IBM PowerPC-based processor named Broadway, with a clock frequency of 729 MHz. The reduced size of Broadway—based on a 90 nm process compared to the 180 nm process used in the GameCube's CPU—resulted in 20% lowered power consumption. The Wii's GPU is a system on a chip produced by ATI and named Hollywood; the core processor runs at 243 MHz, 3 MB of texture memory, digital signal processors, and input/output functions. Additionally, the GPU included an additional 24 MB of 1T-SRAM and an additional 64 MB of 1T-SRAM on the motherboard, totaling to 88 MB of memory for the console. The Wii's computational power was roughly 1.5 to 2 times as powerful as the GameCube, but was the least powerful of the major home consoles of its generation.
The Wii's motherboard has a WiFi adapter which supports IEEE 802.11 b/g modes, and a Bluetooth antenna that communicates with its controllers. A USB-based LAN adapter can connect the Wii to a wired Ethernet network.
The Wii reads games from an optical media drive located in the front of the device. The drive is capable of reading Nintendo's proprietary discs, the 12 cm Wii discs and 8 cm GameCube discs, but cannot read other common optical media—namely, DVD-Video, DVD-Audio or compact discs. Although Nintendo had planned on incorporating this feature into later revisions of the Wii, the demand for the console meant a delay in their schedule, until the feature lost interest. The slot of the optical drive is backed by LED lights which show the system's status. For example, it will pulse blue when the system is communicating with the WiiConnect24 service or when reading a disc after being inserted.
The Wii includes 512 MB of internal flash memory for storing saved games and downloaded content from the Wii channels. Users could expand their storage for downloaded games and saved games, as well as provide photos and music that could be used with some games and Wii channels, through SD cards (and later SDHC cards) inserted into an external slot on the console located under a front panel. A later system update added the ability to launch Wii channels and play Virtual Console and WiiWare games directly from SD cards.
The rear of the console features the unit's video output and power connections along with two USB ports. The top of the console, when placed vertically, includes a panel that includes four ports for GameCube controllers and two GameCube memory cards.
The Wii was Nintendo's smallest home console at the time (the current smallest is hybrid home-portable console Nintendo Switch, when in portable mode); it measures 44 mm (1.73 in) wide, 157 mm (6.18 in) tall and 215.4 mm (8.48 in) deep in its vertical orientation, slightly larger than three DVD cases stacked together. The included stand measures 55.4 mm (2.18 in) wide, 44 mm (1.73 in) tall and 225.6 mm (8.88 in) deep. The system weighs 1.2 kg (2.7 lb), making it the lightest of the three major seventh-generation consoles. The Wii may stand horizontally or vertically.
Wii Remote
The Wii Remote is the primary controller for the console. The remote contains a MEMS-based three-dimension accelerometer, along with infrared detection sensors located at the far end of the controller. The accelerometers allow the Wii Remote to recognize its orientation after being moved from a resting position, translating that motion into gesture recognition for a game. For example, the pack-in game Wii Sports includes a ten-pin bowling game that had the player hold the Wii Remote and perform a delivery of a ball; the Wii Remote could account for the player's position relative to the Sensor Bar, and their arm and wrist rotation to apply speed and spin to the virtual ball's delivery on screen. The infrared detectors are used to track emissions from LEDs in the included Sensor Bar, which is placed just above or below the television display, as to track the relative orientation of the Wii Remote towards the screen. This gives the Wii Remote the ability to act as a pointing device like a computer mouse on the television screen, with an approximate range for accurate detection. In addition, the Wii Remote features traditional controller inputs, including a directional pad (d-pad), three face action buttons and a shoulder trigger, and four system-related buttons include a power switch. The Wii Remote connects to the Wii through Bluetooth with an approximate range, communicating the sensor and control information to the console unit. The Wii Remote includes an internal speaker and a rumble pack that can be triggered by a game to provide feedback directly to the player's hand. Up to four Wii Remotes could connect wirelessly to a Wii, with LED lights on each remote indicating which controller number the Remote had connected as. The remote is battery-operated, and when the Remote is not powered on, these LED lights can display the remaining battery power.
A wrist-mounted strap is included with the Wii Remote, with one end affixed to the bottom of the unit. Nintendo strongly encouraged players to use the strap in case the Wii Remote accidentally slipped out of their hands. Nintendo recalled the original straps in December 2006 and provided a free, stronger strap as a replacement, as well as packaging the new strap in future bundles after the company faced legal challenges from users that reported damage to their homes from the Wii Remote slipping from their hands while playing. In October 2007, Nintendo also added a silicon-based Wii Remote Jacket to shipments of the Wii and Wii Remote, as well as a free offering for existing users. The Jacket wraps around the bulk of the remote but leaves access to the various buttons and connectors, providing a stickier surface in the user's grip to further reduce the chance of the Remote falling out of the player's hand.
Accessories can be connected to a Wii Remote through a proprietary port at the base of the controller. The Wii shipped with the bundled Nunchuk—a handheld unit with an accelerometer, analog stick, and two trigger buttons—which connected to this port on the Wii Remote via a cable. Players hold both the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in separate hands to control supported games.
The Wii MotionPlus accessory plugs into the port at the base of the Wii Remote and augments the existing sensors with gyroscopes to allow for finer motion detection. The MotionPlus accessory was released in June 2009 with a number of new games directly supporting this new functionality, including Wii Sports Resort which including the accessory as part of a bundle. The MotionPlus functionality was later incorporated into a revision of the controller called the Wii Remote Plus, first released in October 2010.
A number of third-party controller manufacturers developed their own lower-cost versions of the Wii Remote, though these generally were less accurate or lacked the sensitivity that Nintendo's unit had.
Other controllers and accessories
The Classic Controller is an extension for the Wii Remote, released alongside the Wii in November 2006. Its form factor is similar to classic gamepads such as that for the Nintendo 64, with a d-pad, four face buttons, Start and Select buttons alongside the Wii connection button, and two shoulder buttons. Players can use it with older games from the Virtual Console in addition to games designed for the Wii. In 2009, Nintendo released the Wii Classic Controller Pro, which was modelled after the GameCube's form factor and included two analog sticks.
The Wii Balance Board was released alongside Wii Fit in December 2007. It is a wireless balance board accessory for the Wii, with multiple pressure sensors used to measure the user's center of balance. Wii Fit offers a number of different exercise modes which monitored the player's position on the board, as well as exercise gamification, as to encourage players to exercise daily. In addition to use in Nintendo's Wii Fit Plus that expanded the range of exercises using the Wii Balance Board, the accessory can be used in other third-party games that translated the player's balance on the unit into in-game controls such as Shaun White Snowboarding and Skate It. Namco Bandai produced a mat controller (a simpler, less-sophisticated competitor to the Balance Board).
One of Iwata's initiatives at Nintendo was focused on "quality of life" products, those that encouraged players to do other activities beyond simply sitting and playing video games as to promote physical wellbeing. The use of motion controls in the Wii served part of this, but Nintendo developed additional accessories to give awareness of one's health as a lead-in for the company to break into the health care field. At E3 2009, Nintendo had presented a "Vitality Sensor" accessory that would be used to measure a player's pulse as a lead-in to a larger quality of life initiative, but this product was never released. In a 2013 Q&A, Satoru Iwata revealed that the Vitality Sensor had been shelved, as internal testing found that the device did not work with all users, and its use cases were too narrow. Despite this, Nintendo has continued Iwata's quality of life program with further products on later consoles and games.
A number of first- and third-party accessories were developed that the Wii Remote could be slotted into and then used in a more physical manner that took advantage of the accelerometer and gyroscopic functions of the controller. Some copies of Mario Kart Wii shipped with the Wii Wheel, a plastic steering wheel frame with the Wii Remote could be inserted into, so that players could steer more effectively in game. Rhythm games that used plastic instruments, such as Guitar Hero III, shipped with instruments that the Wii Remote could be slotted into; the remote powered the various buttons on the controller and relayed that to the Wii.
Variants and bundles
The Wii launch bundle included the console; a stand to allow the console to be placed vertically; a plastic stabilizer for the main stand, one Wii Remote, a Nunchuk attachment for the Remote, a Sensor Bar and a removable stand for the bar to mount on a television set, an external power adapter, and two AA batteries for the Wii Remote. The bundle included a composite A/V cable with RCA connectors, and in appropriate regions such as in Europe, a SCART adapter was also included. A copy of the game Wii Sports was included in most regional bundles.
Although Nintendo showed the console and the Wii Remote in white, black, silver, lime-green and red before it was released, it was only available in white for its first two-and-a-half years of sales. Black consoles were available in Japan in August 2009, in Europe in November 2009 and in North America in May 2010. A red Wii system bundle was available in Japan on November 11, 2010, commemorating the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. The European version of the limited-edition red Wii bundle was released on October 29, 2010, which includes the original Donkey Kong game pre-installed onto the console, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Sports. The red Wii bundle was released in North America on November 7, 2010, with New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Sports. All of the red Wii system bundles feature the Wii Remote Plus, with integrated Wii MotionPlus technology.
Revisions
The prefix for the numbering scheme of the Wii system and its parts and accessories is "RVL-" for its codename, "Revolution". The base Wii console had a model number of RVL-001, for example.
Redesigned model
A cost-reduced variant of the Wii (model RVL-101) was released late into the platform's lifespan that removed all GameCube functionality, including the GameCube controller ports and memory card slots found on the original model. This model is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the "Wii Family Edition", the name given to the bundle in which it was first sold in Europe. Additionally, it does not include a stand, as it is intended to be positioned horizontally. Nintendo announced the new revision in August 2011 as a replacement for the original Wii model which it was discontinuing in certain regions including Europe and the United States. The new unit in its bundles was priced at , a further reduction for the Wii's MSRP at the time of established in September 2009.
The console was first released in North America on October 23, 2011, in a black finish, bundled with a black Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk, along with New Super Mario Bros. Wii and a limited-edition soundtrack for Super Mario Galaxy. It was released in Europe on November 4, 2011, in a white finish, bundled with a white Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk, along with Wii Party and Wii Sports. A special bundle featuring a blue version of the revised Wii model and Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk with the inclusion of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games was released in Europe on November 18, 2011, in collaboration with Sega. Nintendo later revised the North American bundle by replacing the prior pack-in game and soundtrack with the original Wii Sports duology; the new bundle was released on October 28, 2012.
Wii Mini
The Wii Mini (model RVL-201) is a smaller, redesigned Wii with a top-loading disc drive. In addition to the lack of GameCube support, the Wii Mini removes Wi-Fi support and online connectivity, along with the removal of the SD card slot. It also removed support for 480p and component video output. According to Nintendo of Canada's Matt Ryan, they stripped these features to bring down the price of the console further as to make it an option for those consumers that had not yet gotten a Wii or for those who wanted a second Wii in a different location. Ryan stated that while removing the online functionality would prevent some games from being played, most Wii games could still be played without it. The Wii Mini is styled in matte black with a red border, and includes a red Wii Remote Plus and Nunchuk. According to Ryan, the red coloring was indicative of the planned exclusive release in Canada. A composite A/V cable, wired Sensor Bar and power adapter are also included.
The Wii Mini was first released on December 7, 2012, exclusively in Canada with a MSRP of . It was later released in Europe on March 22, 2013, and in the United States on November 17, 2013. The Canadian and European releases did not include a game, while Mario Kart Wii had been included in all launch bundles in the United States. Nintendo added several best-selling and critically acclaimed Wii games to its Nintendo Selects label and marketed those alongside the Wii Mini's release.
Software
The console has many internal features made available from its hardware and firmware components. The hardware allows for extendability (via expansion ports), while the firmware (and some software) could receive periodic updates via the WiiConnect24 service.
Wii Menu
The development of the Wii Menu, the main user interface for the Wii, was led by Takashi Aoyama of Nintendo's Integrated Research & Development Division. The project, named the "Console Feature Realization Project", was to figure out what the Wii interface could show running in a low-power mode on an around-the-clock schedule that would be of interest for people to look at if they were not playing games. The idea of having continually updated weather and news reports made logical sense from testing, and this led to the idea of presenting these similar to a row of televisions each set to a different television channel as if in an electronics shop, creating the "channels" concept. A user can navigate to any channel window to bring that to the forefront, whether to launch the game or application or to get more information that was being displayed. For example, the Forecast Channel would display a brief summary of the local area's temperature and short-term weather forecast, while clicking on the channel brought up an interactive globe that the user could manipulate with the Wii Remote to explore real-time weather conditions across the Earth.
The Wii launched with six channels: the Disc Channel which was used to launch Wii and GameCube titles from an optical disc; the Mii Channel to create Mii avatars; the Photo Channel which could be used to view and edit photos stored on an SD card; the Wii Shop Channel to purchase new games and applications; the Forecast Channel and the News Channel. In addition to default channels that came with the Wii, new channels could be added through system updates, downloaded applications from the Wii Shop Channel, or added by games themselves. Shortly after launch, other free channels created by Nintendo were made available to users, including the Internet Channel, a modified version of the Opera web browser for the Wii which supports USB keyboard input and Adobe Flash Player.
The Wii Menu channels feature music composed by video game composer Kazumi Totaka.
Mii
The Wii introduced the use of player-customized avatars called Miis, which have been continued to be used by Nintendo in the Wii U, the Nintendo 3DS family, and, to a lesser extent, the Nintendo Switch. Each player on a Wii console was encouraged to create their own Mii via the Mii Channel to be used in games like Wii Sports and some of the system software like the Mii Channel. For example, players would select their Mii in Wii Sports, creating their in-game avatar for the game. Miis could be shared with other players through the Mii Channel.
Nintendo DS connectivity
The Wii system supports wireless connectivity with the Nintendo DS without any additional accessories. This connectivity allows the player to use the Nintendo DS microphone and touchscreen as inputs for Wii games. The first game utilizing Nintendo DS-Wii connectivity is Pokémon Battle Revolution. Players with either the Pokémon Diamond or Pearl Nintendo DS games are able to play battles using the Nintendo DS as a controller. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time, released on both Nintendo DS and Wii, features connectivity in which both games can advance simultaneously. Nintendo later released the Nintendo Channel, which allows Wii owners to download game demos of popular games such as Mario Kart DS, or additional data to their Nintendo DS in a process similar to that of a DS Download Station. The console is also able to expand Nintendo DS games.
Online connectivity
The Wii console connects to the Internet through its built-in 802.11b/g Wi-Fi or through a USB-to-Ethernet adapter; either method allows players to access the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection service. The service has several features for the console, including Virtual Console, WiiConnect24, the Internet Channel, the Forecast Channel, the Everybody Votes Channel, the News Channel and the Check Mii Out Channel. The Wii can also communicate (and connect) with other Wii systems through a self-generated wireless LAN, enabling local wireless multi-playing on different television sets. Battalion Wars 2 first demonstrated this feature for non-split screen multi-playing between two (or more) televisions.
Third-party applications
Third-party media apps were added to the Wii's online channels, typically offered as free downloads but requiring subscriber logins for paid services. Among some of these included the BBC iPlayer in November 2009, Netflix in November 2010, Hulu in February 2012, YouTube in December 2012, Amazon Prime Video in January 2013, and Crunchyroll in October 2015. In June 2017, YouTube ended support for its Wii channel. In January 2019, Nintendo ended support for all streaming services on the Wii.
Parental controls
The console features parental controls, which can be used to prohibit younger users from playing games with content unsuitable for their age level. When one attempts to play a Wii or Virtual Console game, it reads the content rating encoded in the game data; if this rating is greater than the system's set age level, the game will not load without a password. Parental controls may also restrict Internet access, which blocks the Internet Channel and system-update features. Since the console is restricted to GameCube functionality when playing GameCube Game Discs, GameCube software is unaffected by Wii parental-control settings.
The Wii also includes a system that records the playtime based on any game or app on the system. While Nintendo decided against a profile system that would require each user to identify themselves, they kept the cumulative playtime tracking system, which cannot be erased or altered, to give parents the means to review their children's use of the Wii.
Games
Retail copies of games are supplied on proprietary, DVD-type Wii optical discs, which are packaged in keep cases with instructions. In Europe, the boxes have a triangle at the bottom corner of the paper sleeve-insert side. The triangle is color-coded to identify the region for which the title is intended and which manual languages are included. The console supports regional lockout: software available in a region can be only played on that region's hardware.
Twenty-one games were announced for launch day in North and South America, with another twelve announced for release later in 2006. Among the system's launch titles in all regions included Wii Sports, which was bundled in all Wii packages except in Japan and South Korea, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Sega's Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, and Ubisoft's Red Steel. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption had been slated as a Wii launch title, but was pushed into 2007 a few months before the Wii's launch. Nintendo had also planned to release Super Smash Bros. Brawl as a launch title, but its director Masahiro Sakurai stated there were difficulties in adapting the format to the Wii's motion controls to require more time for the game's development.
New Wii games included those from Nintendo's flagship franchises such as The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, Pokémon, and Metroid. Nintendo has received third-party support from companies such as Ubisoft, Sega, Square Enix, Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Capcom, with more games being developed for Wii than for the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360. Nintendo also launched the New Play Control! line, a selection of enhanced ports of first-party GameCube games that have been updated to capitalize on the Wii's motion controls.
Backward compatibility
The original launch Wii consoles are backward-compatible with all GameCube software, memory cards, and controllers, although Korean Wii consoles are not backwards compatible at all. Software compatibility is achieved by the slot-loading drive's ability to accept GameCube discs. A Wii console running a GameCube disc is restricted to GameCube functionality, and a GameCube controller is required to play GameCube titles. A GameCube memory card is also necessary to save game progress and content, since the Wii internal flash memory will not save GameCube games. Also, backward compatibility is limited in some areas. For example, online and LAN-enabled features for GameCube titles are unavailable on the Wii, since the console lacks serial ports for the GameCube Broadband Adapter and Modem Adapter. The revised Wii model and the Wii Mini lack the GameCube backward compatibility features.
Virtual Console
The Virtual Console service allowed Wii owners to play games originally released for Nintendo's older consoles, including the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Nintendo 64. Later updates included games from third-party consoles and computers, including the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and Sega Mark III/Master System, NEC TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine, SNK Neo Geo, the Commodore 64 computer, the MSX computer (only in Japan), and various arcade games through Virtual Console Arcade. Virtual Console games were distributed over broadband Internet via the Wii Shop Channel and were saved to the Wii internal flash memory or to a removable SD card. Once downloaded, Virtual Console games can be accessed from the Wii Menu as individual channels or from an SD card via the SD Card Menu.
WiiWare
WiiWare was Nintendo's foray into digital distribution on the Wii, comparable to the existing Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. The service allowed players to purchase games digitally through the Wii Shop, downloading the games to their local memory cards to be run from them. Besides facilitating this form of distribution, WiiWare was also envisioned to help support smaller and independent game developers, offering these teams a less expensive route to produce Wii games without having to go through retail production and distribution channels. The WiiWare channel launched on March 25, 2008, and remained active including through the Wii U's lifetime until the Wii Shop Channel was discontinued in 2019.
Reception
Critical reviews
The system was well received after its exhibition at E3 2006, winning the Game Critics Awards for Best of Show and Best Hardware. Later in December, Popular Science named the console a Grand Award Winner in home entertainment. The game proceeded to win multiple awards; the console was awarded Spike TV's Video Games Award, a Golden Joystick from the Golden Joystick Awards, and an Emmy Award for game controller innovation from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. IGN and The Guardian named the Wii the 10th greatest video game console of all time out of 25, and GameSpot chose the console as having the best hardware in its "Best and Worst 2006" awards.
The Wii was praised for its simple yet responsive controls, as well as its simplicity that appeals to broader audiences. Although Dan Grabham of Tech Radar enjoyed its simple mechanics, stating how "even grandparents can pick things up pretty quickly", he also enjoyed the depth of content carried over from the GameCube. CNET likened the "no-brainer" setup and the easy to navigate home screen. Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, called the Wii "the only next gen system I've seen", and rather considered the PS3 and the Xbox 360 as simply successors with "incremental improvement". He believed that the Wii did not only improve on graphics, but also complimented how it "hits a completely different demographic". Reviewers were fond of the compact design, with Ars Technica comparing it to an Apple product.
By 2008, two years after the Wii's release, Nintendo acknowledged several limitations and challenges with the system (such as the perception that the system catered primarily to a "casual" audience and was unpopular among hardcore gamers). Miyamoto admitted that the lack of support for high-definition video output on the Wii and its limited network infrastructure also contributed to the system being regarded separately from its competitors' systems, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Miyamoto originally defended Nintendo's decision to not include HD graphics in the Wii, stating that the number of HDTV's in people's homes at the time was "really not that high, yet. Of course I think five years down the road it would be pretty much a given that Nintendo would create an HD system, but right now the predominant television set in the world is a non-HD set." In 2013, Miyamoto said in an interview with Japanese video game website 4Gamer that "Even for the Wii, no matter how much it made the system cost, it would have been great if it were HD in the first place."
At the same time, criticism of the Wii Remote and Wii hardware specifications had surfaced. Former GameSpot editor and Giantbomb.com founder Jeff Gerstmann stated that the controller's speaker produces low-quality sound, while Factor 5 co-founder Julian Eggebrecht stated that the console has inferior audio capabilities and graphics. UK-based developer Free Radical Design stated that the Wii hardware lacks the power necessary to run the software it scheduled for release on other seventh-generation consoles. Online connectivity of the Wii was also criticized; Matt Casamassina of IGN compared it to the "entirely unintuitive" service provided for the Nintendo DS.
Although the Wii Mini was met with praise for being cheap, considering it was bundled with a Wii Remote, Nunchuk and a copy of Mario Kart Wii, it was considered inferior compared to the original console. Critics were disappointed in the lack of online play and backwards compatibility with GameCube games, and also believed the hardware was still rather quite large, being about half the size of the Wii; Eurogamers Richard Leadbetter thought the Wii Mini was not any more "living room friendly", as he believed the "bright red plastics make it stand out much more than the more neutral blacks and whites of existing model's casing." He stated that the overall design was rough in texture, and seemed to have been built with emphasis on durability. Nintendo Life reviewer Damien McFerran said that the lightweight design of the Wii Mini makes it feel "a little cheaper and less dependable" with empty space inside the shell. CNET criticized the pop-open lid for inserting disks to be "cheap-feeling".
Third-party development
The Wii's success caught third-party developers by surprise due to constraints of the hardware's distinct limitations; this led to apologies for the quality of their early games. In an interview with Ubisoft's Yves Guillemot and Alain Corre admitted that they made a mistake in rushing out their launch titles, promising to take future projects more seriously. An executive for Frontline Studios stated that major publishers were wary of releasing exclusive titles for the Wii, due to the perception that third-party companies were not strongly supported by consumers. 1UP.com editor Jeremy Parish stated that Nintendo was the biggest disappointment for him in 2007. Commenting on the lack of quality third-party support, he stated that the content as worse than its predecessors, resulting in "bargain-bin trash".
Additionally, the lack of third-party support also came from the fact that first-party games released by Nintendo were too successful, and developers were having issues with competing. Game developers, such as Rod Cousens, CEO of Codemasters were having issues with the slow sales on the Wii. The Nikkei Business Daily, a Japanese newspaper, claimed that companies were too nervous to start or continue making games for the console, some of which considering the Wii to be a fad that will eventually die down in popularity. Nintendo considered why this was the case was due to the fact that they "know the Wii's special characteristics better than anyone", and began developing the games for the console long before its release, giving them a head start.
Due to struggling sales during 2010, developers began creating alternative options. Capcom took note of the difficulty of making money on the Wii, and shifted their content to making less games, but with higher quality. According to Sony, many third-party developers originally making games for the Wii started focusing attention more of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
Sales
Initial consumer reaction to the Wii appears to have been positive, with commentators judging the launch to have been successful. The launch of the Wii in November 2006 was considered the largest console launch by Nintendo in the Americas, Japan, Europe and Australia. The console outsold combined sales of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in several regions in its launch period. The Wii remained in short supply through the first year. The company had already shipped nearly 3.2 million units worldwide by the end of 2006, and worked to raise production amounts to 17.5 million through 2007, but warned consumers that there would be shortages of the Wii through that year. Wii sales surpassed Xbox 360 sales by September 2007. To meet further demand, Nintendo increased production rates of the Wii from 1.6 million to around 2.4 million units per month in 2008, planning to meet the continued demand for the console.
At the March 2009 Game Developers Conference, Iwata reported that the Wii had reached 50 million sales. Nintendo announced its first price reductions for the console in September 2009, dropping the MSRP from to . The price cut had come days after both Sony and Microsoft announced similar price cuts on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. Nintendo stated that the price reduction was in anticipation of drawing in more consumers who still cautious about buying a video game console. The Wii became the best-selling home video game console produced by Nintendo during 2009, with sales exceeding 67 million units.
In 2010, sales of the Wii began to decline, falling by 21 percent from the previous year. The drop in sales was considered to be due to a combination of the introduction of the PlayStation Move and Kinect motion control systems on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 systems, and the waning fad of the Wii system. Wii sales also weakened into 2011 as third-party support for the console waned; major publishers were passing over the Wii which was underpowered and used non-standard development tools, and instead focused on games for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and personal computers. Publishers were also drawn away from the Wii with the promise of the more powerful Wii U in the near future. Wii sales continued to decline into 2012, falling by half from the previous year. After its release in Canada on December 7, 2012, the Wii Mini had sold 35,700 units by January 31, 2013.
The Wii surpassed 100 million units sold worldwide during the second quarter of 2013. The Wii had total lifetime sales of 101.63 million consoles worldwide as of March 31, 2016, the last reported data for the console by Nintendo. At least 48 million consoles were sold in North America, 12 million in Japan, and 40 million in all other regions. , the Wii is the fifth-best-selling home console of all time, surpassed by the original PlayStation (102.4 million units), the PlayStation 4 (117.2 million units), the Nintendo Switch (125.62 million units), and the PlayStation 2 (159 million units). , the Wii is Nintendo's second-best-selling home console, having been outsold by the Nintendo Switch at 125.62 million units.
, nine Wii games had sold over ten million units globally, which included Wii Sports (82.90 million, including pack-in copies), Mario Kart Wii (37.38 million), Wii Sports Resort (33.14 million), New Super Mario Bros. Wii (30.32 million), Wii Play (28.02 million), Wii Fit (22.67 million), Wii Fit Plus (21.13 million), Super Smash Bros. Brawl (13.32 million), and Super Mario Galaxy (12.80 million). A total of 921.85 million titles had been sold for the Wii by June 30, 2022. The popularity of Wii Sports was considered part of the console's success, making it a killer app for the Wii as it drew those that typically did not play video games to the system.
Legal issues
There were a number of legal challenges stemming from the Wii and Wii Remote. Several of these were patent-related challenges from companies claiming the Wii Remote infringed on their patents. Most of these were either dismissed or settled out of court. One challenge was from iLife Technologies Inc., who sued Nintendo over their Wii Remote's motion detection technology for patent infringement in 2013. iLife initially won a judgement against Nintendo in 2017. The case was overturned in 2020, with the appellate court ruling that iLife's patents were too broad to cover the specific motion detection technologies developed by Nintendo.
There were lawsuits against Nintendo claiming physical damage done by ineffective wrist straps on the Wii Remote when they slipped out of players' hands and broke television screens or windows. The first class action suit filed in December 2006 led Nintendo to issue a product recall for the existing wrist straps and send out new versions that had an improved securing mechanism for the wrist. A second class action lawsuit was filed by a mother in Colorado in December 2008, claiming the updated wrist straps were still ineffective. This suit was dismissed by September 2010, finding for Nintendo that the wrist straps were not knowingly faulty under Colorado consumer protection laws.
Legacy
Impact on Nintendo
The Wii has been recognized as Nintendo's "blue ocean" strategy to differentiate itself from its competitors Sony and Microsoft for the next several years. The Wii has since become seen as a prime example of an effective blue ocean approach. While Sony and Microsoft continued to innovate their consoles on hardware improvements to provide more computational and graphics power, Nintendo put more effort towards developing hardware that facilitated new ways to play games. This was considered a key part to the success of the console, measured by sales over its competitors during that console generation. However, Nintendo did not maintain this same "blue ocean" approach when it took towards designing the Wii U, by which point both Sony and Microsoft had caught up with similar features from the Wii. These factors partially contributed towards weak sales of the Wii U.
Part of the Wii's success was attributed to its lower cost compared to the other consoles. While Microsoft and Sony have experienced losses producing their consoles in the hopes of making a long-term profit on software sales, Nintendo reportedly had optimized production costs to obtain a significant profit margin with each Wii unit sold. Soichiro Fukuda, a games analyst at Nikko Citigroup, estimated that in 2007, Nintendo's optimized production gave them a profit from each unit sold ranging from in Japan to in the United States and in Europe. The console's final price at launch of made it comparatively cheaper than the Xbox 360 (which had been available in two models priced at and ) and the then-upcoming PlayStation 3 (also to be available in two models priced at and ). Further, Nintendo's first-party games for the Wii were set at an retail price of , about less expensive than average games for Nintendo's competitors. Iwata stated they were able to keep the game price lower since the Wii was not as focused on high-resolution graphics in comparison to the other consoles, thus keeping development costs lower, averaging about per game compared to required for developing on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.
Health effects
The Wii was marketed to promote a healthy lifestyle via physical activity. It has been used in physical rehabilitation, and its health effects have been studied for several conditions. The most studied uses of Wii for rehabilitation therapy are for stroke, cerebral palsy, Parkinson's disease, and for balance training. The potential for adverse effects from video game rehabilitation therapy (for example, from falls) has not been well studied as of 2016.
A study published in the British Medical Journal stated that Wii players use more energy than they do playing sedentary computer games, but Wii playing was not an adequate replacement for regular exercise. Some Wii players have experienced musculoskeletal injuries known as Wiiitis, Wii knee, Wii elbow (similar to tennis elbow) or nintendinitis from repetitive play; a small number of serious injuries have occurred, but injuries are infrequent and most are mild.
In May 2010, Nintendo gave the American Heart Association (AHA) a $1.5 million gift; the AHA endorsed the Wii with its Healthy Check icon, covering the console and two of its more active games, Wii Fit Plus and Wii Sports Resort.
Homebrew, hacking, and emulation
The Wii has become a popular target for homebrewing new functionality and video games since its discontinuation. For example, homebrew projects have been able to add DVD playback to unmodified Wii consoles. The Wii also can be hacked to enable an owner to use the console for activities unintended by the manufacturer. Several brands of modchips are available for the Wii.
The Wii Remote also became a popular unit to hack for other applications. As it connected through standard Bluetooth interfaces, programmers were able to reverse engineer the communications protocol and develop application programming interfaces for the Wii Remote for other operating systems, and subsequently games and applications that used the Wii Remote on alternate platforms. Further hacks at the hardware level, typically taking apart the Wii Remote and Sensor Bar and reconfiguring its components in other configurations, led to other applications such as remote hand and finger tracking, digital whiteboards, and head tracking for virtual reality headsets.
The Wii has been a popular system for emulation; while the act of creating such emulators in a cleanroom-type approach have been determined to be legal, the actions of bringing the Wii system software and games to other systems has been of questionable legality and Nintendo has actively pursued legal action against those that distribute copies of their software. The open-source Dolphin project has been able to successfully emulate the Wii and GameCube through several years of cleanroom efforts.
Music
Joe Skrebels of IGN has argued that the Wii's greatest and longest lasting legacy is that of the music composed by Totaka for the console, writing: "Motion controls, Miis, and balance boards have all been removed or diminished as Nintendo moved on, but take a quick look across YouTube, TikTok, or Twitter, and I guarantee it won't take all that long to hear a Wii track. Covers and memes featuring music from the Wii are everywhere. Music written for the Wii has taken on a new life as a cultural touchstone, and inspired people far beyond the confines of the little white wedge it was composed for." The Washington Posts Michael Andor Brodeur described the Mii Channel music as "a cultural touchstone", while Martin Robinson of Eurogamer called the theme of the Wii Shop Channel "a song so infectious it went on to become a meme"; both the Mii Channel theme and Wii Shop Channel theme have inspired jazz covers.
Notes
See also
History of Nintendo
References
Works cited
External links
Global and general Wii site
2000s in video gaming
2000s toys
2006 in video gaming
2010s in video gaming
2010s toys
Backward-compatible video game consoles
Computer-related introductions in 2006
Discontinued video game consoles
Home video game consoles
Products and services discontinued in 2017
Products introduced in 2006
Seventh-generation video game consoles
Spike Video Game Award winners |
421894 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissel%20Kyrkjeb%C3%B8 | Sissel Kyrkjebø | Sissel Kyrkjebø (; born 24 June 1969), also simply known as Sissel, is a Norwegian soprano.
Sissel is considered one of the world's top crossover sopranos. Her musical style ranges from pop recordings and folk songs, to classical vocals and operatic arias. She sings mainly in English and Norwegian and has also sung songs in Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Irish, Italian, French, Russian, Icelandic, Faroese, German, Neapolitan, Māori, Japanese and Latin.
She rose to prominence in Norway in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and her cover version of Ole Paus' song "Innerst i sjelen" gained wide popularity in the 1990s. She is well known for singing the Olympic Hymn (Hymne Olympique) at the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway; for duets with Plácido Domingo and Charles Aznavour at the "Christmas in Vienna" concert of 1994, José Carreras, Andrea Bocelli, Bryn Terfel, Josh Groban, Neil Sedaka, Mario Frangoulis, Russell Watson, Brian May, Tommy Körberg, Diana Krall, Warren G, Dee Dee Bridgewater and The Chieftains; and her participation on the Titanic film soundtrack.
Sissel received her first U.S. Grammy nominations on 6 December 2007 for a collaboration with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Spirit of the Season, a collection of songs from the choir's 2006 Christmas concert at Temple Square, was nominated for the Best Classical Crossover Album of the Year, as well as Best Engineered Classical Album.
Sissel's combined solo record sales (not including soundtracks and other albums to which she contributed) amount to 10 million albums sold, most of them in Norway, a country with 5 million people. Her albums have also sold well in Sweden, Denmark and Japan. Together with Odd Nordstoga, they are the only Norwegian artists to have an album go 11 times platinum in album sales for Strålande jul (Glorious Christmas).
In Norway she is mostly known as Sissel Kyrkjebø; she started using her first name mononymously abroad later in her career. Her first name 'Sissel' is a Norwegian variant of 'Cecilia'. This is a popular first name from Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of church music. Her last name means "church farm" or "church field", and may be derived from an agricultural property owned by or located near the local church.
Early life
Sissel grew up on Lønborg in Bergen with two older brothers, Eirik and Bjørn. Sissel and her parents often took hikes in the mountains surrounding Bergen. In early years she wanted to be a nurse, but at the age of nine music became her passion.
She joined her first children's choir under the direction of New Zealand-born conductor Felicity Laurence. She stayed with the choir for seven years and said, "That was my musical education. We sang everything: classical and jazz, folk and even Māori songs. People said we sounded like an angel choir because we had this very clean pure sound, almost like an English boys' choir."
Sissel won her first local talent competition when she was ten. She was influenced by various musical genres; her parents were interested in country music and classical music, and her brothers' interest in rock music also influenced her. She has stated that Barbra Streisand, Kathleen Battle and Kate Bush were inspirations.
Career
1983–1985: First TV appearances, Syng med oss
In 1980, she appeared in the sing-along program ('Sing with Us') together with a children's choir. Her first solo appearance was in 1984, when she sang the Norwegian folk song "Ung Åslaug". Sissel performed in this program many times until 1989. Her first solo TV appearance without the choir was in 1983 on Norwegian TV, with the song "Evergreen" in the children's program . Later same year she and Rune Larsen, her later manager guested the TV-program ('Do You Remember?'), hosted by Odd Grythe. She performed "" ('Childhood Home') and "Sukiyaki".
She first sang "Å, Vestland, Vestland" on Syng med oss in 1985; it has been her signature song since then.
1986–1994: Rise to prominence in Norway, Sissel, Soria Moria and Innerst i Sjelen
In January 1986, Sissel appeared on the Norwegian TV-show "Kanal 1", hosted by Ivar Dyrhaug. She performed "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" by Barbra Streisand and later, in February she performed "Comin' In and Out of Your Life" on the 1986 Alpine Skiing World Cup TV-show in Norway. In May, Sissel performed "Bergensiana" during the intermission of the Eurovision Song Contest 1986, which took place in Grieg Hall in her home town of Bergen. That was her big breakthrough and same year, her first album, Sissel, was released. It sold more than 500,000 copies, making it the best selling album in Norway at that time.
In 1987, Sissel made her debut on Danish television, on Under Uret, hosted by Hans Otto Bisgaard. She performed two songs: "Vårvise" with Danish singer/composer Sebastian and "Summertime". Later that year, in November Sissel released her Christmas album Glade Jul. It contained several traditional Christmas carols and it broke her previous record for best-selling album in Norway. This album still holds the record. Upon its release, it sold more than 600,000 copies in a country with a population of less than five million: to date, it has sold approximately 1 million copies. In Sweden, a Swedish language version was released, called Stilla Natt. Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet honored her as "The Name of the Year" in December. That year Sissel also was invited to represent Norway in the Eurovision Song Contest 1987, but she declined.
This year Sissel wanted a break from her music career and attended a commercial upper-secondary school in Bergen. She performed at the memorial concert of singer/songwriter Trygve Henrik Hoff in Tromsø, in February. Hoff wrote several of the songs on Sissel's debut album, Sissel from 1986. Hoff died in 1987. In the fall of 1988, Sissel moved to Oslo for a short period to play the role of Maria von Trapp in the Norwegian version of The Sound of Music. This production set box office records and was seen by over 110,000 people.
In 1989, she released her third album, Soria Moria. The album sold 180,000 copies. In the summer of the same year, Sissel travelled to the US and performed in New York City on the TV program Artists for Our Common Future, which was broadcast around the world. She performed "Summertime" and "Somewhere".
On a Swedish TV-concert recorded in Gothenburg she met Danish comedian and singer Eddie Skoller, whom she later married. They sang "Vårvise" by Sebastian.
In 1990, Sissel recorded the singing parts of the character Princess Ariel for the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish versions of the 1989 Disney movie The Little Mermaid, and played the voice role of Ariel in the Norwegian and Swedish versions. In the same year Sissel visited The Faeroe Islands developing a project called "Kystland". It resulted in two TV programs, Med Sissel til Kirkjubø and the church concert Tidin rennur.
In December 1990, Sissel opened the new concert hall in Oslo, Oslo Spectrum at the Christmas-concert "Å gi er å se".
In 1991, Sissel toured Norway and Denmark with her very successful church concert, Tidin rennur. In the fall of 1991, Sissel met and performed with Neil Sedaka on the Norwegian TV-show Momarkedet. Sissel sang his song "Solitaire" while Sedaka played on the piano. He was very impressed and they collaborated on her next and first album featuring only songs with English lyrics, Gift of Love which came out in 1992. Sissel sings three songs written by Sedaka, including a duet on "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do".
In the winter of 1992, Sissel was named one of the official musicians of the upcoming 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. She made a short appearance at the closing ceremony of the Olympics in Albertville, France. Dressed like a princess sitting on a giant fake polar bear like in the Norwegian folktale Kvitebjørn kong Valemon, she performed "Molde Canticle" by Jan Garbarek. Her album Gift of Love was released in October, and the album sold only 60,000 copies. It received criticism for her new style on the album. Sissel joined Neil Sedaka on his fall tour in Norway same year, and she also had several event performances in the U.S.
In the summer of 1993, Sissel played the role of Solveig in Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen at Den Nationale Scene in Bergen. This was very well received by critics. Later, in August Sissel married Eddie Skoller in St Mary's Church, Bergen in Bergen. Thousands of fans waited in the rain outside the church to get a glimpse of Sissel after the wedding-ceremony. The wedding received a great deal of attention from Norwegian and Danish press.
In February 1994, Sissel performed during the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. During the Olympics, legendary Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo visited Norway, where he came across one of her earlier albums. He contacted Sissel and the next day they recorded "Fire in Your Heart", an English version of "Se ilden lyse", the official theme song of the Lillehammer Olympics. These two versions of the song were released in February 1994 on Sissel's solo album Innerst i sjelen (Deep Within My Soul), a collection of Nordic folk songs. Domingo invited Sissel, along with world-renowned French singer Charles Aznavour, to take part in his annual Christmas in Vienna concert later that year. The concert was broadcast around the world and released as an album internationally.
1995–2001: Climb to international recognition, All Good Things and In Symphony
In 1995, Sissel was invited to perform at the 1995 Live For Peace – Royal Gala in London. In celebration of 50 years V.E. Day she performed in front of Charles, Prince of Wales, in London Coliseum. She sang the renowned aria O Mio Babbino Caro from the opera Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini and the Norwegian classic Vitae Lux with the choir Gli Scapoli.
In 1997, Sissel toured the US with the Irish group The Chieftains. They appeared, among other places, on the Late Show with David Letterman and in Carnegie Hall. Later that summer, Sissel was involved in recording the soundtrack to the film Titanic. The soundtrack, called Titanic: Music from the Motion Picture, became immensely popular, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard charts and selling more than 30 million copies worldwide. James Horner, the composer of the film's music, knew Sissel from her album Innerst i sjelen and he particularly liked how she sang Eg veit i himmerik ei borg (I Know in Heaven There Is a Castle). Horner had tried 25 or 30 singers before deciding on Sissel. She was then scheduled to record the theme song to James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster film Titanic, but Celine Dion's vocals were preferred due to James Horner's decision to support Dion's career. In an interview from December 2014, Horner quotes: "When I had completed the Titanic [movie], I had to decide for Celine Dion or Sissel['s] [vocals]. Sissel I am very close, while Celine I had known since she was 18, and I had already written three film songs for [her]. But that was before Celine was known and filmmakers and marketing people had not done what they should have done for Celine and [her] songs. So I felt I owed her a Titanic chance, but I could [still] have used Sissel there." Instead, Kyrkjebø completed much of the film score for the soundtrack album.
Sissel had a No.1 hit across Europe in 1998 with Prince Igor, a duet with an American rapper Warren G on the concept album The Rapsody Overture which combined American rappers with European opera singers. Sissel sang an aria from Alexander Borodin's opera Prince Igor during the chorus, while Warren G rapped. When the song was recorded, Sissel had just a half-hour to learn the Russian lyrics and she got help from a Russian, who drove a cab in New York City: the driver's name, coincidentally, was Igor. Sissel was on her way to the airport, but the taxi-driver drove her direct to the studio and followed Sissel into studio. He helped Sissel sing the Russian words correctly while Sissel recorded her part of the lyrics. In the end, he was satisfied and they made it to the airport afterwards. On St. Patrick's Day that year, Sissel made her second performance on the Late Show, singing "Love Will You Marry Me?" with The Chieftains.
In 1999, Sissel started working on a new album with producer Rick Chertoff, and travelled between Copenhagen and New York. The CD was to be released in 2000, but Sissel was unhappy with the results of the recording sessions and scrapped the album. That year she sang the Gaelic song Siúil A Rún on The Chieftains' 1999 album Tears of Stone.
The beginning of 2000 marked Bergen as the "European city of culture", and Sissel performed at the opening ceremony. In May, as a part of Bergen's Nattjazz Festival she performed at a concert where she sang several duets with jazz singer Diana Krall. In November 2000, Sissel released (in Norway only) her album, All Good Things, which was her first solo album in nearly seven years. Following high sales, 300,000 copies sold, the album was released throughout Europe and Asia the following year. The album included the duet "Where the Lost Ones Go" with fellow Norwegian singer Espen Lind, which was also released on his album This Is Pop Music in 2001. Sissel performed Christmas carols and a few of her new tunes at the Festival of Lights (Lysfest) in Bergen in the beginning of December, culminating the city's celebration of being the cultural city of Europe. The concert was broadcast live on the Internet. Later the same month, she was invited to represent Norway at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, where she sang "One Day" and "Weightless", both songs from All Good Things. She was introduced by Jane Seymour as "the Norwegian star Sissel." Sissel also released a greatest hits collection in Japan that included two new songs, in collaboration with Gheorghe Zamfir. These songs were used in the Japanese TV show Summer Snow, one of which was the show's theme song. Sissel is enormously popular in Japan and has released several Japanese versions of her albums there.
In 2001, she was asked to sing a duet with the Danish goth rockers Sort Sol. Sissel sang with them on the track "Elia Rising" from their album Snakecharmer, released in May 2001. Sissel was inspired by the Kylie Minogue/Nick Cave-ballad "Where the Wild Roses Grow". Sort Sol and Sissel performed both in Tivoli and at Roskilde Festival that year. At the Roskilde, they performed at 2 in the morning for a raucous audience of 50,000 rock fans. Sissel made her debut on the big screen in June, playing a female lumberjack, Inga, in the Danish children's film, Flyvende farmor (Flying Grandma). In this movie, Sissel sings the Danish song "Himlen over Himmelbjerget". In September, Sissel played two "In Symphony" concerts in Drammen, Norway, with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and special guests. The concert was broadcast in Sweden, Norway and Denmark and was also released as a live CD, Sissel in Symphony, which sold 240,000 copies. Later in autumn 2001, Sissel toured Scandinavia and sang at a memorial ceremony in October at Copenhagen Airport. Sissel then performed at a memorial concert for a 17-year-old boy, Benjamin Hermansen, the victim of a racially motivated murder in a suburb of Oslo. She also performed at an AIDS/HIV benefit concert in Kulturkirken Jakob, Oslo where she sang "Eg Ser". On 6 December, Sissel performed with the Oslo Gospel Choir in Washington, D.C., as part of Norwegian Visions 2001.
2002–2008: More international success, My Heart, Nordisk Vinternatt and Into Paradise
In 2002, Sissel recorded two duets, Ave Maria and Bist du bei mir (BWV 508), with Plácido Domingo in April for his Sacred Songs album, released in September of that year. On 24 May 2002, dressed in traditional Norwegian costume, Sissel performed the Norwegian psalm "Lær meg å kjenne" at the wedding of Princess Märtha Louise of Norway and Ari Behn in the Nidaros Cathedral. In August, Sissel performed with the Danish Radio Orchestra at two outdoor concerts in the park surrounding Ledreborg Castle near Roskilde in Denmark. In addition to the orchestra, Sissel entertained the sold-out crowd of 22,000 and guests on these concert were artists like Paddy Moloney and The Pilatze Brothers. On 1 October 2002, Sissel released her first album in the US. It sold over 100,000 copies in its first three months of release with hardly any advertising or marketing. The album sold better than Decca record executives expected, their initial goal having been to sell 100,000 copies in the first nine months. The album, titled Sissel, was largely a re-recording of songs from her Norwegian album, All Good Things with the addition of two songs, "Solitaire" and "Shenandoah". In late 2002, one of Sissel's concerts was filmed at the Oslo Spectrum and later broadcast in March 2003 on PBS in the United States. The British Singer Russell Watson was one of her guests. The production was subsequently released as the DVD Sissel in Concert. In December 2002, Sissel was again invited to represent Norway at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, for which she sang "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz and "The Prayer" in a duet with Josh Groban. Sissel closed out 2002 by performing at a Christmas concert, Christmas in Moscow 2003, in Moscow, Russia with José Carreras, Plácido Domingo and Emma Shapplin. The show garnered mixed reviews from the Russian media, although Sissel received all-around high marks. This concert was broadcast on Russian television and in October 2014 this concert was released on CD.
In April 2003, Sissel performed in Tokyo, Japan and then in April–May she toured US, visiting Philadelphia, St. Louis and New York City. Sissel had a Poulsen rose (a rose engineered to thrive in cold Scandinavian winters) named after her on 10 August in Denmark. "She spreads joy among all of us with her wonderful voice" was the reasoning behind the honor, bestowed upon her in the garden of Haraldsted Church. Sissel performed The Rose, Vatnet, våren, fela and Solveig's Song during the presentation. Sissel sang with Swedish singer Peter Jöback on the Christmas single "Gå inte forbi" for his new holiday CD. Sissel also guested him on his Christmas tour in Sweden that year.
Sissel released her second US album, My Heart, in March 2004. It was a classical crossover album and included two pop songs written by Richard Marx and one ballad, "Wait A While", written by Jon Lord of Deep Purple. "My Heart" reached No. 3 on the Billboard Classical Album Chart after debuting at No. 7 and spent 31 weeks on the chart. In the summer and fall of 2004, Sissel went on tour with The Lord of the Rings Symphony. She was a featured soloist for an orchestral performance dedicated to the music from The Lord of the Rings films. The Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore, who arranged and conducted the music, planned on hiring three soprano singers to handle the vocal chores, but after hearing Sissel, decided she would be enough. At each performance, Sissel performed with a symphony orchestra and choirs with 200 musicians on stage. Howard Shore stated, "Ancient Norwegian mythology and culture had a great influence on Tolkien's work. It is very thrilling to have the Norwegian singer Sissel perform as a soloist in The Lord of the Rings Symphony. Sissel's radiant voice illuminates this work." When asked about the tour in an interview, Sissel raved, "I love the music. It's such a wonderful feeling to be sitting in the middle of a symphony orchestra, surrounded by the beautiful voices of the choir and all those gorgeous melodies."
In May 2005, Sissel performed with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City, Utah, on their radio and TV broadcast, Music and the Spoken Word, which is featured on nearly 2,000 stations across the US and around the world. Sissel joined the choir to commemorate the Centennial of Norwegian Independence from Sweden, which was being celebrated that year. Sissel sang the ABBA song "Like An Angel Passing Through My Room", "Vitae Lux", the traditional Norwegian hymn "Herre gud, ditt dyre navn og ære", and the Norwegian national anthem, "Ja, vi elsker dette landet" (Yes, we love this country), with the choir. On 8 October 2005, King Harald of Norway knighted Sissel a Knight of the 1st Class in the Order of St. Olav for her contributions to music and as an ambassador for Norway. Sissel was 36 years old. The ceremony was held on 25 January on Hotel Bristol in Oslo. Same month Sissel was invited to perform on the well-known temple-concert, Ninna-ji Otobutai, in Osaka, Japan. She sang "Pie Jesu", "Sancta Maria" (intermezzo from Pietro Mascagni's opera Cavalleria Rusticana), "You Raise Me Up", and a couple of other songs. This concert was aired on television in Japan.
In December 2006, Sissel again joined the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as the featured soloist for their annual Christmas concerts. In four performances, she sang for more than 80,000 people in the 21,000-seat Conference center in Salt Lake City. The concerts were videotaped for PBS television and aired the year after, in December 2007. Sissel celebrated more than 20 years in the music industry with the release of a greatest hits album presenting 40 of her best and most well-known songs, including some never-before-released songs. She toured Norway in December with her Christmas concerts with a mix of Christmas carols and hits from her greatest hits-release that year.
In March 2007, a statistically representative sample of the Norwegian population chose her as the best female Norwegian musical artist in competition with 15 other big names, including Lene Marlin, Wenche Myhre, Kari Bremnes, and Bertine Zetlitz. In the summer of 2007, Sissel toured Norway, Sweden, France, and the US with a band. According to Sissel, this is a new concert format for her, without a choir. For the 2007 holiday season, PBS stations aired two concerts starring Sissel as part of the December pledge drive, one with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir titled Spirit of the Season, released on CD and DVD in late September 2007, the other with operatic legend and good friend José Carreras titled Northern Lights, released on CD and DVD in early November 2007. The albums of these concerts have proven to be extremely popular, with Northern Lights reaching No. 10 in the Billboard Classical Crossover list, and Spirit of the Season staying firmly planted at No.1 on the Billboard Classical charts for nine consecutive weeks.
The album Northern Lights is a live recording of a concert at Bergstadens Ziir ("Jewel of the mountain town" in German), a church from the 17th Century in Røros, Norway (a 17th-Century Germany mining town). It was inspired by Norway's winter, the Blue hour, and the mystical Northern Lights. The music were arranged by Kjetil Bjerkestrand and the musicians sharing the stage with Sissel were the Trondheim Soloists, the Nidaros Cathedral Girls Choir, and Sissel's own band. The concert featured the tenor José Carreras, which performed the Julio Iglesias/Dolly Parton-duet "When You Tell Me That You Love Me" with Sissel. Sissel conducted an eight-city US tour in February 2008, singing selections from Northern Lights. A second leg of the tour covered more cities in the central and southern United States and lasted through April.
2009–present: New influences and break from music, Strålande Jul and Til deg
On 9 November 2009, Sissel released a new Christmas album called Strålande Jul (Glorious Christmas), a project with Odd Nordstoga, another popular Norwegian singer. This album presents mostly lesser-known Christmas carols from Scandinavia. Sissel toured in both Norway and Sweden with Odd Nordstoga, The Real Group, Orsa spelmän, and Krister Henrikson. This album and their sold-out Christmas concerts received much critical acclaim in Norway and Sweden. The record company Universal Music anticipated sales of about 100,000 CDs, but ultimately sold more than 400,000 in Norway in the first two months.
In May 2010, Sissel visited China with the Trondheim Soloists, on Expo 2010 in Shanghai. They performed songs like "Jag vill alltid følja dig", "Solveig's Song" and "Wait A While". Part of these concerts were broadcast on Norwegian television in the summer of 2010. On 20 September 2010, an unauthorized biography of Sissel, named Sissel, by Stig Nilsson, was released in Norway. Nilsson had written several songs for Sissel earlier in her career. In the book, Nilsson claims—among other things—that Sissel never became a worldwide superstar because she did not want to be. The book has only been released in Norwegian. On 15 November 2010, Sissel released a new album in Scandinavia called Til deg (For You), recorded in ABBA's Polar Studios in Stockholm, Nidaros Studios in Trondheim, and in Nashville. This album shows a new direction in music and is heavily influenced by the style of country music, roots and folk. The album includes five songs sung in Swedish, three in Norwegian and two in English, including a Norwegian translation of Victoria Shaw's song "Never Alone", titled "Velkommen hjem", and a Swedish cover of Alison Krauss' song "Ghost in This House", called "Levande död". Sissel has collaborated with Mikael Wiehe, Espen Lind, and Py Bäckman on the new album.
In 2011 Sissel moved back to Norway after 22 years in Denmark. On 21 August 2011, Sissel performed the Norwegian hymn "Til ungdommen" by Nordahl Grieg at the National Memorial Ceremony for the victims of 22 July 2011 terrorist attacks. This ceremony took place in Oslo Spectrum and was broadcast live in all the Nordic countries. HM King Harald and HM Queen Sonja of Norway attended this ceremony with members from all the Nordic Royal Houses, and the prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, Denmark plus the presidents of Iceland and Finland. In September Sissel got her own stamp in Norway when a set of stamps of four Norwegian female performers was issued.
In December 2012 Sissel performed exclusively in two free Christmas-concerts in St John's Church, Bergen. This was the first time she performed a Christmas concert on her own in that church.
In November 2013 Sissel officially returned to the stage, after a 3-year long break. She appeared on the Norwegian talkshow "Lindmo", where she performed "My Tribute" by Andrae Crouch. Sissel toured Norway in November and December with her Christmas concerts with a new mix of Christmas- and gospel songs. She hired three gospel singers from New York to back her up on these concerts.
On 17 May 2014 Sissel performed the Norwegian national anthem "Ja, vi elsker dette landet" and Griegs "Våren" on the Norwegian Constitution Day 2014 on Eidsvoll, Norway. Royal guests from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark attended this ceremony which was broadcast live on television. Later, in September Sissel performed with the Greek tenor Mario Frangoulis at a concert on 5 September at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Greece. This concert, "Sing Me An Angel" was held in aid of the Non Profit Organisation "I Live For Me". They performed several duets like "You Raise Me Up", "Nights in White Satin", "Smile" and "What A Wonderful World". Sissel toured Norway and Sweden with her acclaimed Christmas concerts in November and December. In the fifth episode (of Season 3) of American television political drama series The Newsroom, which aired in December, a recording of Sissel singing "Shenandoah" was played over the death scene of Charlie Skinner (Sam Waterston).
In 2015 Sissel performed as vocal soloist at two Titanic Live-concerts in Lucerne, Switzerland on 13 and 14 March, and later at the Royal Albert Hall, London on 27 April, where Sissel performed the vocal lines of James Horner's orchestral score as well as the solo soprano for "My Heart Will Go On". A few weeks later James Horner died when his single-engine Tucano aircraft crashed in the Los Padres National Forest. In December 2015 Sissel was as one of nine names nominated for the 2016 Hall of Fame at Rockheim in Norway.
The beginning of 2016 saw Sissel performing at a TV-broadcast Royal Gala on 17 January, celebrating the 25th or silver jubilee of HM The King and HM The Queen of Norway's accession to the Norwegian throne. Sissel sang "For alltid" ("Forever"), written by Ole Paus. She toured Sweden in the fall, from 14–31 October with her new concert, Songs of Love. And in November/December she toured Norway, Denmark and Iceland with her Christmas concert, Sissel's jul. Sissel again was nominated in December for the 2017 Hall of Fame at Rockheim in Norway. And the 2014 PBS-concert, "Sing Me An Angel" with Mario Frangoulis was broadcast on television in the US from December.
In February 2017 Sissel performed at a TV-broadcast Celebration-concert for her friend, singer-songwriter Ole Paus in the Opera House in Oslo. And in November/December she toured Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland with her Christmas concert success, Sissel's jul.
In May 2019 Sissel released the first of 50 new songs that came out each week for the following 50 weeks. This new project, named Reflections celebrated Sissel turning 50 years that year. On 6 June, Sissel performed together with Italian singer Andrea Bocelli at a concert in Oslo. In July, Sissel again was invited to perform with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the orchestra at Temple Square in their Pioneer Day concert, which also was broadcast on YouTube. And in August, Sissel made a special guest appearance on the popular Swedish TV-show Allsång på Skansen, where she performed two new songs, "Welcome to My World" and "Surrender".
Personal life
From 1993 to 2004, Kyrkjebø was married to her first husband Danish-American comedian and singer, Eddie Skoller. They have two daughters, Ingrid (born 1996) and Sarah (born 1999).
On 13 August 2013, Kyrkjebø married her second husband, Norwegian tax lawyer, Ernst Ravnaas, in a private ceremony in Hov church.
Discography
Unreleased/Rare/Unfinished/Performed songs by Sissel Kyrkjebø
Notable concerts and tours
Awards and recognition
1986 – Årets spellemann (Musician of the Year) in the Spellemannprisen.
1986 – Årets navn (Person of the Year) by Norwegian national newspaper Dagbladet.
1986 – På gang-scholarship from Norwegian national newspaper VG, with Åge Aleksandersen
1990 – Ansgarskolens Mediapris (Ansgarschool's Mediaprize), with Oslo Gospel Choir for the 1990 album Oslo Gospel Choir Live
1992 – Klods Hans Prisen
1993 – Gledespiken-prisen
1995 – Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International
2002 – Ranked Scandinavia's Mostselling Artist with a total of 460 000 records sold on 18 months, with the albums In Symphony and Sissel
2005 – UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador
2005 – Knight of the 1st Class in the Order of St. Olav. On 8 October 2005, The King of Norway knighted Sissel for her contributions to music and as an ambassador for Norway. She was the youngest ever recipient of this honor.
2006 – Juryens hederspris (Most Distinguished Artist—akin to a lifetime achievement award) in Spellemannprisen 2006. She is the youngest Norwegian performer ever to receive this award.
2007 – Topp 10 – Beste kvinnelige artist Sissel was awarded Best Female Artist of Norway by the Norwegian public broadcasting company NRK in the TV program Topp 10 on 17 March 2007.
2009 – A rose developed by Poulsen Roses is named after Sissel and she baptized the rose in Baroniet Rosendal on 4 August 2009.
2010 – In February 2010 Sissel was nominated for the 40th Peer Gynt Award, which went to Dissimilis.
2011 – On 16 September 2011, a set of stamps of four Norwegian female performers (Sissel Kyrkjebø, Wenche Myhre, Mari Boine and Inger Lise Rypdal) was issued.
2011 – Rolf Gammleng-prisen (Open category)
2015 – In December 2015 Sissel was nominated for the first time for the Rockheim Hall of Fame 2016.
2016 – In December 2016 Sissel was nominated for the second time for the Rockheim Hall of Fame 2017.
2018 – In December 2018 Sissel was nominated for the third time for the Rockheim Hall of Fame 2019.
See also
Sissel & Odd
References
External links
Sissel Kyrkjebø on Instagram
Sissel Kyrkjebø on Facebook
1969 births
Living people
Musicians from Bergen
21st-century Norwegian women singers
Norwegian Lutherans
Norwegian sopranos
Opera crossover singers
Norwegian-language singers
English-language singers from Norway
German-language singers
Italian-language singers
French-language singers
Latin-language singers
Spellemannprisen winners |
421901 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy%20of%20communist%20Czechoslovakia | Economy of communist Czechoslovakia | In the mid-1980s, Communist Czechoslovakia was prosperous by the standards of the Eastern Bloc, and did well in comparison to many richer western countries. Consumption of some goods like meat, eggs and bread products was even higher than the average countries in Western Europe, and the population enjoyed high macroeconomic stability and low social friction. Inhabitants of Czechoslovakia enjoyed a standard of living generally higher than that found in most other East European countries. Heavily dependent on foreign trade, the country nevertheless had one of the Eastern Bloc's smallest international debts to non-socialist countries.
The command economy of Czechoslovakia possessed serious structural problems. Like the rest of the Eastern Bloc economies, producer goods were favored over consumer goods, causing consumer goods to be lacking in quantity and quality in the shortage economy that resulted. Economic growth rates lagged well behind Czechoslovakia's western European counterparts. Investments made in industry did not yield the results expected. Consumption of energy and raw materials was excessive. Czechoslovak leaders themselves decried the economy's failure to modernize with sufficient speed.
The differing statistical concepts and procedures used by socialist and non-socialist economists make an assessment of the status of the Czechoslovak economy complicated. Foreign trade statistics are particularly difficult to assess because a variety of currency conversion methods were employed to calculate trade turnover value. Data calculated on the basis of non-socialist concepts will be identified here by the use of such Western terms as gross national product; Czechoslovak statistics will be called official data or identified by such terms as net material product or national income.
Functioning of the economy
The Czechoslovak economy, like most economies in socialist countries, differed markedly from market or mixed economies. The main difference is that while in market economies, decisions by individual consumers and producers tend automatically to regulate supply and demand, consumption and investment, and other economic variables, in most communist economies, these variables are decided by a national plan that has the force of law.
In Czechoslovakia, like in most socialist countries, the centralized economic structure paralleled that of the government and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunistická strana Československa—KSČ). This structure gave the party firm control over the government and the economy. It is generally referred to as the Soviet model and was first applied in the Soviet Union, which was initially an agrarian nation with extensive natural resources, a large internal market, and relatively little dependence on foreign trade; the goal was to quickly develop heavy industry and defense production. Czechoslovakia, by contrast, was a small country that had already reached a high level of industrialization and was rather heavily dependent on foreign trade when the Soviet system was first imposed after World War II.
In the mid-1980s, Czechoslovakia had a highly industrialized economy, a fact reflected in the 1985 official statistics concerning production of the net material product of the country (the official measure of aggregate production). The industrial sector accounted for 59.7 percent of the value of the net material product; construction, 11.2 percent; agriculture and forestry, 7.5 percent; and various other productive services (including transport, catering, and retailing, among other activities), 21.6 percent. As of 1980 the socialist sector (state enterprises or cooperatives) generated 97.4 percent of the national income. Of the total workforce, almost 99.8 percent was employed in the socialist sector.
Plans and their implementation
Government ministries prepared general directives concerning the desired development of the economy. They passed these along to the economic advisory body, the Central Planning Commission, which in turn prepared the long-term targets of the economy. These were expressed in extensive economic plans--in general plans covering periods fifteen to twenty years into the future and in the well-known five-year plans. Since 1969, economic plans for the Czech Socialist Republic and the Slovak Socialist Republic have been produced by their own planning commissions, although the central plan remained the most important. Most significant on a daily operational basis, however, were the short-term annual production objectives. In their final form, these more detailed annual plans have the force of law, no longer being merely guides or recommendations.
In formulating the various plans, the Central Planning Commission converted the directives of the ministries into physical units, devised assignments for key sectors of the economy, and then delivered this information to the appropriate ministries, which oversee various functional branches of the economy. Upon receiving their assignments, the various ministries further subdivided the plan into tasks for the industrial enterprises and trusts or groups of enterprises under their supervision. A parallel process took place for agriculture, in which the federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food supervised the planning procedures for the collectives and state farms. Agricultural farms had been collectivized according to a process pioneered by Joseph Stalin in the late 1920s by which Marxist-Leninist regimes in the Eastern Bloc and elsewhere attempted to establish an ordered socialist system in rural agriculture. Because of the need to conceal the assumption of control and the realities of an initial lack of control, no Soviet dekulakization-style liquidation of rich peasants occurred in countries such as Czechoslovakia. Because Czechoslovakia was more industrialized than the Soviet Union, it was in a position to furnish most of the equipment and fertilizer inputs needed to ease the transition to collectivized agriculture.
The ministries provided more detailed instructions concerning fulfillment of the assignments and passed them along to the trusts and enterprises. Upon receipt of their proposed tasks, individual enterprises drew up a draft plan with the assistance of their parent trust or ministry. After receiving feedback concerning the plan, the ministries consulted again with the Central Planning Commission and, assembling all the draft plans, formulated an operational plan that could achieve the central directives. The appropriate parts of the assignments were then dispatched once again to the trusts and enterprises. This time, their acceptance by the enterprises and trusts was mandatory.
The norms included in the instructions to the enterprises usually specified the volume and kinds of production required, inputs available, a production schedule, job categories and wage rates, and a description of the centrally funded investment planned. National and republic budget levies and subsidies, profit targets and limitations, and plans for the introduction of new products and technology were also set forth in the instructions.
Advantages and disadvantages
Advocates of this centralized system of managing the economy contend that it has a number of advantages. In a centrally planned system, authorities can distribute resources and production targets as they choose, balancing the needs of consumption and investment on the basis of long-term goals. Planners in postwar Czechoslovakia, for example, were thus able to expand the country's heavy industrial base as they wished. In turn, research efforts, being centrally directed, can focus on areas deemed vital to the economy's goals. In general, central planning can make it possible for producers to take advantage of economies of scale, eliminating superfluous and wasteful activities. If planning is really effective, the system should result in virtually full employment of resources.
As critics have pointed out, however, certain aspects of the system interfere with its effective functioning. One problem is the assignment of production quotas. Planners generally must base these assignments on the past performance of enterprises. Enterprise managers, knowing that planners tend to assess enterprise performance according to completion or non-completion of assigned tasks, may be tempted to understate and misrepresent the production potential of their organizations in order to obtain an assignment they can easily handle. Also, they may have little incentive to overfulfill aspects of the current plan; such achievements might lead planners to assign a substantially more difficult or even unachievable task during the next planning period, resulting in poor performance evaluation for the enterprise. Such a disparity might call into question the validity of the information previously furnished to the planners by the enterprise managers. To ensure plan fulfillment, managers tend to exaggerate their material and labor requirements and then to hoard these inputs, especially if there is a reason to worry about punctual delivery of supplies. Furthermore, since planning under the Soviet model aims at full utilization of resources, plans are typically "taut," and an ambitious manager who seeks to obtain resources beyond those needed to achieve the plan norms may find the process difficult and discouraging, if not impossible. Given the emphasis on the fulfillment of the plan, managers may also hesitate to adopt new technology, since the introduction of a new procedure might impede operations and even jeopardize plan fulfillment. Critics have also noted that central planning of production can result in an inappropriate assortment of goods from the consumers' point of view or in low-quality production.
Producer goods were favored over consumer goods, causing consumer goods to be lacking in quantity and quality in the shortage economies that resulted. Because periodic shortages of birth control pills and intrauterine devices made these systems unreliable in Czechoslovakia, abortion became the most common form of contraception . Many premium goods could be bought only in special stores using foreign currency generally inaccessible to most citizens, such as Tuzex stores in Czechoslovakia. As a result, black markets were created that were often supplied by goods stolen from the public sector. A saying in Czechoslovakia was "if you do not steal form the state, you are robbing your own family." Private car ownership remained low by Western standards. The wait list for the distribution of Czechoslovak Škoda cars was up to 15 years.
In addition, because of large social purges, so many workers were dismissed from established professions in such purges that they often had to be replaced by hastily trained younger workers free of questionable class origins. A Czechoslovak noted:
Like the rest of the Eastern Bloc, Czechoslovakia effectively missed the information and electronics revolution of the 1970s and 1980s. The party-state planned system ended up collapsing under the weight of accumulated economic inefficiencies, with various attempts at reform merely contributing to the acceleration of crisis-generating tendencies. It possessed poorly defined property rights, a lack of market clearing prices and overblown or distorted productive capacities in relation to analogous market economies.
Growth rates
Growth rates in Czechoslovakia, as throughout the Eastern Bloc, experienced relative decline. Meanwhile, Germany, Austria, France and other Western European nations experienced increased economic growth in the Wirtschaftswunder ("economic miracle") Trente Glorieuses ("thirty glorious years") and the post-war boom. Overall, the inefficiency of systems without competition or market-clearing prices became costly and unsustainable, especially with the increasing complexity of world economics. While most western European economies essentially began to approach the per capita Gross Domestic Product levels of the United States, Eastern Bloc countries such as Czechoslovakia did not. Its per capita GDP fell significantly below comparable western European counterparts on an exchange basis:
Similar results occur for GDP on a PPP basis:
History
Before socialism
In 1929, compared to 1913, the gross domestic product increased by 52% and industrial production by 41%. In 1938, Czechoslovakia was in 10th place worldwide in terms of industrial production.
After World War II the Czechoslovak economy emerged relatively undamaged. Industry, which was the largest sector of the economy, included large firms in light and heavy industry. During the war, the German occupation authorities had taken over all major industrial plants. After the war, the reconstituted Czechoslovak government took control of these plants. Immediately after the war, the Soviet Union began to transfer large amounts of industrial and other assets from Eastern Bloc countries, including Czechoslovakia. In addition, the Soviets reorganized enterprises as joint-stock companies in which the Soviets possessed the controlling interest. Using that control vehicle, several enterprises were required to sell products at below Western market prices to the Soviets, such as uranium mined in Czechoslovakia.
Foreign trade was still in private hands, however, and remained important in the economy. Exports of machinery and consumer goods paid for imports of materials for processing. The quality of Czechoslovak export products was comparable to that of products produced in other industrialized countries. Agriculture also remained in private hands, and farming was still largely a family affair. The labor force as a whole was skilled and productive, and management was competent. This mixed system, containing elements of socialism and private enterprise, operated efficiently in 1947 and 1948 under a two-year plan in which goals were general and indicative rather than mandatory. The country received considerable assistance from the West through the UN, and most of its trade was with the West. Until prohibited by Stalin in 1947, Czechoslovakia intended to participate in the United States Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. By 1948 Czechoslovak production approximated pre-war levels, with agricultural output being somewhat lower and industrial output somewhat higher than earlier levels.
1948–1960
When the KSČ assumed complete political and economic control in February 1948, it began immediately to transform the Czechoslovak economy into a miniature version of that of the Soviet Union. By 1952 the government had nationalized nearly all sectors; many experienced managers had been replaced by politically reliable individuals that sometimes had little experience in the areas they were assigned to manage. Central planning provided a mandatory guide for institutions and managers to follow in nearly all economic activity.
The targets of the First Five-Year Plan (1949–53) reflected the government's commitment to expansion of the producer goods sector of the economy. The goals were dramatically revised upwards after 1949, partly in response to the Korean War, to build up metallurgy and heavy industry. The country became an important supplier of machinery and arms to other communist countries. Foreign trade with non-communist countries dropped sharply (in part because of trade controls imposed in those countries); trade with communist countries increased from 40% of the country's total in 1948 to 70% a decade later. The economy failed to reach the ambitious goals of the first plan, although investment and growth were high. On the results of the first five-year plan, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia claims:
"The gross industrial output increased by 93 percent during the five-year plan, reaching a level more than double the 1937 output. Machine building became the leading industry, its output increasing by a factor of 3.3 over the five years. Industrial growth was especially rapid in Slovakia. At the same time, there were disproportions in the development of individual branches of the national economy, and agriculture lagged behind the growing demands of industry and the population."
By the end of the plan period, serious inflationary pressures and other imbalances had developed, requiring a currency conversion in 1953 that wiped out many people's savings and provoked outbreaks of civil disorder.
The years 1954 and 1955 were covered by yearly plans only; the scheduling change was part of an effort by the members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) to correlate and integrate their planning by using common planning periods.
The Second Five-Year Plan then encompassed the years 1956–60. During that period, investment continued at a high rate, although real wages and the supply of consumer goods also increased substantially, and national income grew by 6.9%. In the late 1950s, however, economic leaders noted that investment efforts were yielding diminishing returns. Large investments were required to sustain economic growth. In 1958 and 1959, in response to this troubling situation, the government made several relatively minor adjustments in the functioning of organizations and prices—the first of the country's economic reforms. The reforms involved some limited decentralization of authority, most notably giving enterprises more autonomy in handling investment funds. The intention was not to alter the Soviet economic model to any great extent but rather to enhance its overall operation. The reforms did not result in noticeable improvements in economic performance, however. Eventually, in 1962, planners quietly scrapped the entire reform program, reimposing most of the central controls.
On the results of the Second Five-Year Plan, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia claims:
"During the second five-year plan the industrial output increased by 66 percent, rising to four times the pre-war level (1937). The national income increased by a factor of 2.5 between 1948 and 1960. The socialist sector now owned 87.4 percent of the farmland, and the organization of farmers into cooperatives was virtually completed. Nevertheless, in terms of the growth of production, agriculture lagged behind industry. The successes of socialist construction quickly raised the living standard of the people. A national conference of the Communist Party, held on July 5–7, 1960, confirmed the victory of socialist production relations in the country. Several days later, on July 11, the National Assembly adopted a new constitution under which the country was renamed the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (CSSR). The constitution proclaimed the CSSR a socialist state based on a firm alliance, headed by the working class, of the peasantry, the working class, and the intelligentsia."
1960s
During the early 1960s, industrial production stagnated and the agricultural sector also registered a relatively poor performance. Agriculture had been a weak part of the economy throughout the 1950s, consistently failing to reach planned output targets, and the minimal reforms of 1958–59 had done little to alter the situation. Targets set for the national economy in the Third Five-Year Plan (1961–65) quickly proved to be overly ambitious, particularly with regard to foreign trade. The plan was dropped after a recession in 1962, and annual plans covered the remainder of the period. National income actually declined in 1963. By 1965 it was only 1.9% higher than in 1960, in comparison with a 6.9% growth rate in the 1956–60 period.
Many factors contributed to the economy's poor performance, including adverse weather for agriculture, cancellation of orders by China resulting from the Sino-Soviet dispute, and unrealistic plan goals. By this time, however, reform-minded economists had reached the conclusion that much of the blame lay in deficiencies of the Soviet model. They began to prepare additional reform measures to improve the economy's efficiency.
Serious defects in the Soviet model for economic development had long been recognized by some Czechoslovak economists, and calls for decentralization had occurred as early as 1954. Economists and others had argued that
it was inappropriate to apply the Soviet model to Czechoslovakia in a dogmatic manner, because:
The country was already industrialized, had few natural resources and a small internal market, and remained dependent on foreign trade in significant ways.
The model emphasized extensive development, such as building new factories, rather than intensive investment in which production processes were modernized and efficiency improved.
The pressure for greater investment and defense production during the 1950s had caused private consumption to grow more slowly than net material product. The result had been a chronic inflationary bias, reflected in shortages of consumer goods and forced savings by the population.
Plants and construction firms held large inventories of materials to compensate for irregular deliveries from suppliers.
Completion of most investment projects required an inordinate amount of time, freezing funds in unproductive uses.
Inadequate investment in agriculture had contributed to the latter's chronically poor performance.
Prices were also a problem, based as they were on often conflicting policies; prices reflected neither scarcity nor cost, bore little rational relationship to one another in the domestic market, and had become increasingly divorced from world prices.
The system appeared to stifle innovation and to offer no basis for selecting between investment and production alternatives or for judging efficiency.
By the early 1960s, several Czechoslovak economists had analyzed these problems and had remedies to offer. In October 1964, the party published a set of principles for major economic reform and, beginning in 1965, started implementing specific measures. In June 1966, the Thirteenth Party Congress gave its official approval to the new program, which came to be called the New Economic Model (NEM). The implementation of the reform started in 1967 and it accelerated the political developments of 1968. The reform program was multifaceted, and portions of it were never implemented. Its principal object was to limit significantly the role of the central planning authorities while expanding the autonomy and responsibility of the enterprises:
The central planning authorities were to concern themselves only with overall long-term planning and to provide general guidance.
Enterprises and their associations would be free to determine short-term production targets.
Individual enterprises were to become financially viable, realizing a profit from their sales.
State subsidies would gradually end; enterprises that could not operate at a profit would have to close.
Profit, rather than fulfillment of planned quantitative output targets, was to become the main criterion for evaluating the economic performance of enterprises.
Producers were to be increasingly exposed to foreign competition, so that they would seek to increase their own productivity and lower prices.
As a means of earning much- needed hard currencies, exports to Western countries were to be stimulated through incentives encouraging enterprises to make their products competitive on world markets.
A more realistic system of prices was to replace the centrally determined system. Prices were to reflect actual costs, the supply and demand situation, and relevant world prices. Enterprises were to finance investments with their own resources and interest-bearing bank loans and would have to justify their investments in terms of need, effectiveness, and cost so that widespread waste of investment resources would cease.
Finally, a revised wage and salary system was to eliminate egalitarianism in the wage structure and substitute a system based on individual work performance and on results obtained by the employing enterprise.
Furthermore, the government consolidated enterprises into large production units resembling trusts or cartels managed by "branch directorates." These large production units formed an intermediate link between the enterprises and the ministries. The branch directorates had overall responsibility for the performance of enterprises under their jurisdiction, but the division of authority between the larger unit or trust and its subordinate members was not clearly defined. In the spring of 1968, the government permitted enterprises to experiment with worker participation in management through the establishment of enterprise councils.
Czechoslovak reformers did not intend to permit free play of market forces. They had implemented only a portion of their program by August 1968, when Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops invaded the country and the reform experiment came to an end. The next two years saw the gradual dismantling of most of the program. By the early 1970s, almost all traces of the reform measures had vanished.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Czechoslovak economy continued to grow at a respectable rate throughout the period. From 1966 to 1970, the period of the Fourth Five-Year Plan, net material product grew at an average annual rate of 6.9%, well exceeding the planned yearly increase of 4.1 to 4.4%.
1970s
Economic "normalization" resulted in a reversion to mandatory central planning and price controls. Only a few modifications of the central planning system remained, including devolution of some aspects of planning to the consolidated production units and modification of some plan indicators to emphasize efficiency, productivity, quality, and innovation rather than simply gross output targets.
Performance was still gratifying during the Fifth Five- Year Plan (1971–75). During this period, net material product grew somewhat more slowly, averaging 5.7% yearly, but still exceeded the planned rate of 5.1% yearly. Wages, incomes, and personal consumption levels rose at respectable rates despite an overall increase in investment. Agriculture continued to be a weak area but had improved markedly. By 1975 the agricultural sector was almost self-sufficient in animal production, and self- sufficiency in crop production appeared to be an attainable goal. Rural wages rose, and mechanization progressed rapidly.
During the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1976–80), by contrast, economic performance was far less satisfactory; in the closing years of the period, the slowdown in economic growth became especially noticeable. Net material product grew by only 3.7% yearly on average, instead of the 4.9% called for by the plan. Both agriculture and industry and productivity increase failed to meet planned growth targets Problems in agriculture were in part a result of drought (1976) and severe winter and spring flooding (1979). Other factors, such as shortages of agricultural machinery and spare parts and poor quality of fertilizer, also affected the agricultural sector. Large imports of grain necessarily continued. During the plan period, growth rates in personal consumption declined, reaching a low point of 0.5% in 1979. At the same time, in contrast to the previous plan period, retail prices rose by about 11% over the 5-year period. During the last few years of the plan, there were widespread consumer complaints about the unavailability of basic commodities such as meat, milk, and vegetables. The economy's performance was lackluster despite the continuing infusion of substantial investment funds. In part, the rise in the investment rate in the 1970s reflected large capital expenditures for increased mining of coal and other fuels and for the development of engineering branches to produce equipment for nuclear power plants. Nevertheless, given the considerable funding poured into the economy, the mediocre condition of the Czechoslovak industrial plant in general at the end of the 1970s must have been discouraging to economic planners.
The energy and trade problems Czechoslovakia faced in the late 1970s were also major factors in the slowdown in industrial growth. The terms on which Czechoslovakia conducted foreign trade had begun to deteriorate sharply by the mid-1970s. After 1974 the rapid rise of world oil prices was partially reflected in the price of oil from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia's principal source of fuel and raw materials. Prices of other materials on which the country's economy depended also increased faster than the prices of its exports, which consisted primarily of manufactured goods (especially machinery). Party and government leaders were cautious about increasing foreign indebtedness and attempted to maintain a high level of exports. Increasingly in the 1970s, a substantial portion of the country's production of consumer goods and machinery was diverted to export markets to meet the rising import bill. Restraints on imports from noncommunist countries reduced inputs for domestic industries.
1980–1985
At the beginning of the 1980s, the economy had substantial limitations, which were recognized by economists, political leaders, and even the public at large. The country had perhaps the oldest stock of plant and equipment in Eastern Europe, a stagnant resource base, and growing dependence on energy and material imports. To reduce requirements for energy and raw materials and to increase the competitiveness of Czechoslovak exports, domestic production needed to become more efficient. Furthermore, consumption standards continued to be well below those found in Western Europe.
Economic planners set relatively modest growth targets for the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1981–1985), revising their goals downward two years into the plan. "Intensification" of the economy—focusing on efficient use of resources rather than simply quantitative growth—was the keynote of government policy. The early years of the Seventh Five-Year Plan saw a serious slump in the economy. During 1981 and 1982, personal consumption actually declined. The cost of living rose more rapidly than wages. During the final three years, however, an economic recovery made up for the earlier poor performances; according to official calculations, the country succeeded in either meeting or surpassing domestic goals during the plan period as a whole. Results of the "intensification" effort were disappointing, however, as leaders acknowledged. During the plan, consumption of energy decreased by only 1.7% per annum, less than the 2% goal of the plan .
The relatively favorable outcome of the Seventh Five-Year Plan was noteworthy, particularly because several international trends had had negative effects on the Czechoslovak economy during the period. A recession in developed Western countries dampened their markets for Czechoslovak exports; and in 1981 the Soviet Union announced its intention to scale back oil exports to Eastern Europe, including Czechoslovakia, by 10%. Although in 1983 and 1984 worldwide prices for oil began to drop, the Comecon (or Soviet) price, tied to a 5-year formula, caused the price of Soviet oil (16.4 million of the 16.6 million tons imported by Czechoslovakia in 1984) to continue to climb. In 1982 the decision of Western banks to restrict credit to Eastern Europe as a result of Poland's serious payment problems and the sizable debts of other East European countries impeded Czechoslovakia's foreign trade with the West.
The poor performance of the economy in the early 1980s persuaded party leaders that some changes were needed. Therefore, in conjunction with the Seventh Five-Year Plan, in 1981 the government introduced a series of limited reforms called the "Set of Measures to Improve the System of Planned National Economic Management after 1980." Relatively conservative in design and initiated without fanfare, these reforms permitted somewhat greater freedom of action for managers of enterprises in selected operational areas, giving them more authority over their own investment activities and over providing financial incentives to workers. The intention was to make industry as a whole more aware of prices and costs. The reforms did not call for any appreciable loosening of central planning and control. In 1982 parallel reform measures were introduced for agriculture; the measures permitted farm officials to exercise greater management initiative and limited the number of binding targets imposed on farm production. Many Western observers believed that these reforms did have a helpful effect during the final years of the plan. It was felt, however, that these partial reforms were not sufficiently comprehensive to bring about the modernization and improvements in efficiency sought by Czechoslovakia's leaders.
1986–1989
The Eighth Five-Year Plan called for further "intensification" within the economy. The plan focused on raising the quality and technological level of production, lowering the cost of energy and materials in relation to output, increasing labor productivity, accelerating the pace of innovation at the workplace, improving discipline, and continuing the "structural" shift of the economy from productive activities requiring great consumption of energy to more advanced technologies and capitalintensive industry. National income was to rise 19%, or just over 3.5% annually on average. Plans called for industrial output to grow 15.8%, an average increase of about 3% yearly, while personal consumption was to grow by only 11.9%. Modest as these targets were, they were higher than the results achieved during the Seventh Five-Year Plan. Only agriculture was to grow at a rate slower than that of the previous plan period; with a total increase of 6.9%, it would average just over 1% growth annually. Investment, while still low, would increase 10.4% during the plan (as compared with 2.5% in the 1981–85 period). Special attention was to be given to the machine-building and electronics industries, the chemical and metallurgical industries, construction of nuclear power plants and expansion of the natural gas network, and environment-related projects. The plan called for exports to grow at a higher rate than the national income. The government did not plan any substantial borrowing in hard currency, concentrating instead on paying off its relatively modest (US$2 billion) debt to the West.
In the mid-1980s, Czechoslovak leaders acknowledged the persisting weaknesses in the country's economy and its need to modernize more rapidly. Although the government announced no major reforms in conjunction with the Eighth Five-Year Plan, in 1987 an experiment was begun involving about 120 industrial enterprises. These enterprises were to receive only key planning figures from the central authorities; otherwise, they were to have increased autonomy in planning production, seeking profitable forms for their activities, and managing their own finances. The reforms represented a significant step beyond the modest "Set of Measures" of 1981, which had retained strict central controls. This was a cautious response to the more ambitious reforms sponsored by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union.
Data on late 1987 to 1989 need to be added.
Industry
see: Industry of Communist Czechoslovakia
Agriculture
see: Agriculture in Communist Czechoslovakia
Foreign trade
see: Foreign trade of Communist Czechoslovakia
Financial system and banking
Currency
The koruna (Kčs), or crown, was the national currency and consisted of 100 haléřů. In 1986 the currency continued to be convertible only under restricted conditions and at official rates. Violation of exchange regulations constituted a serious offense. The koruna could be used only within the country and was not used in foreign trade. In 1987 the official, or commercial, exchange rate was Kcs5.4 per US$l; the tourist, or noncommercial, rate was Kcs10.5 per US$l. The koruna was legally defined in terms of 123 milligrams of gold, which provided a historical basis for the commercial rate.
Banking system
At the head of the country's banking system was the State Bank of Czechoslovakia. The State Bank was the central bank, the government's financial agent, the country's commercial bank, an investment bank, and the clearing agent for collection notices. It also supervised the other banking in the country and, in conjunction with specific ministries, formulated the financial plan for Czechoslovakia. The other banks, also state owned, were subordinate to the State Bank and relegated to special functions.
The Commercial Bank of Czechoslovakia was primarily the bank for foreign currency transactions.
Three additional banks—two of which were savings banks, one for each of the republics, providing credit to individuals—completed the banking system in 1980.
The main function of the banking system was to act as the government's agent in implementing the financial plan, an important part of which consisted of expanding and contracting credit to meet the economy's needs. The central authorities controlled most investments directly, and the national plan regulated production. The State Bank acted as a supervisory agent in extending credit to the enterprises, ensuring that the investments met plan goals. The bulk of bank credit was for working capital, largely utilized to finance the purchase of materials and the sale of finished products. The powers of the State Bank appeared to be somewhat limited, however, since credit was extended according to guidelines for planned production.
The central authorities set interest rates, which neither reflected the cost of capital nor appreciably affected the flow of credit. Instead, beginning in the 1970s, interest rates were differentiated to accomplish objectives of the plan. Interest rates were low for enterprises modernizing a production process. Punitive rates were used if firms deviated from plan goals. In the mid-1980s, the greatest portion of investment credits went to the industrial sector, followed by agriculture, construction, and retail trade.
The banking system operated within the framework of the financial plan. Major elements of the financial plan included allocation to consumption and investment, foreign and domestic financing of investment, and wage and price changes. Planning authorities were in a position to use the centralized banking system to carry out major corrective measures, as occurred in 1953 when inflationary pressures became serious and the population's accumulated savings were largely wiped out by a conversion of the currency. After this experience, officials placed stricter controls on investments, permitting real wages and the standard of living to rise gradually. But in the late 1970s, and particularly in the early 1980s, the worsening terms of trade, bottlenecks in the economy, and the need for large investments in energy and industry combined to limit the allocations for consumption.
Inflation and prices
Imposition of the Soviet model introduced a chronic inflationary bias into the Czechoslovak economy, although the inflation was not necessarily reflected in prices. Control of prices (only private food produce, especially fruit and vegetables, were priced freely) repeatedly produced inflationary manifestations in other areas, such as shortages in the market and increased savings by the population. Although officials generally limited the rise in prices (causing price indexes to advance slowly), by the mid-1970s prices had to be adjusted upward more frequently. This trend continued into the 1980s, and major food price increases occurred in 1982.
Budget and taxes
In addition to the banking system, another major financial tool for implementing economic policies and the annual plan was the central and republic government budgets. The Czechoslovak government published little budget information. Western observers believed that small surpluses of revenues were more common than deficits, however. Budget revenues were derived primarily from state economic organizations and the turnover tax. Income taxes provided a small part of revenues. Other minor revenue sources included agricultural taxes and customs duties. The planning authorities redistributed these budget funds according to the plan guidelines, using the budget to encourage certain sectors through subsidies or investment funds.
Central authorities set prices on over 1.5 million kinds of goods. State enterprises were theoretically autonomous financial entities that covered costs and profits from sales. Because the government set production quotas, wage rates, and prices for the products manufactured and the inputs used in the process, however, managers had little freedom to manage. In the 1950s, the government had collected nearly all enterprise funds above costs for redirection according to its priorities. After the 1958 reforms, enterprises obtained a little more control over surplus funds, although the government continued to control the amount of the surplus. In the 1980s, the government was encouraging enterprises to undertake modernization and other limited investment from their own funds and bank credit and to rely less on budget funds.
The turnover tax, another major source of budget revenue, was originally employed in the Soviet Union as a simple and effective method of collecting most of the funds needed by the government without requiring extensive bookkeeping and estimating. It was introduced in Czechoslovakia in 1953 and lost its importance as the chief source of revenue only in the late 1960s, when other levies extracted funds from state enterprises. The tax was collected on goods destined for retail, the rate varying according to the difference between the producer's costs plus approved margin and the selling price as specified by pricing officials. Retail prices of manufactured consumer goods, such as clothing and particularly tobacco products, alcoholic beverages, and sugar, were substantially higher than those of such basic necessities as potatoes, milk, and eggs. The turnover tax appeared to be both a source of revenue and a tool used to influence consumption patterns.
See also
Eastern Bloc economies
References
Notes
External links
RFE Czechoslovak Unit, Blinken Open Society Archives, Budapest
Economy of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic |
421915 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS%20Nautilus%20%28SS-168%29 | USS Nautilus (SS-168) | USS Nautilus (SF-9/SS-168), a and one of the "V-boats", was the third ship of the United States Navy to bear the name.
Construction and commissioning
Nautilus was originally named and designated V-6 (SF-9), but was redesignated and given hull classification symbol SC-2 on 11 February 1925. Her keel was laid on 10 May 1927 by the Mare Island Naval Shipyard of Vallejo, California. She was launched on 15 March 1930 sponsored by Miss Joan Keesling, and commissioned on 1 July 1930. It was the first of many submarines built at Mare Island CA.
Design
The configuration of V-4, V-5, and V-6 resulted from an evolving strategic concept that increasingly emphasized the possibility of a naval war with Japan in the far western Pacific. This factor, and the implications of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, suggested the need for long-range submarine "cruisers", or "strategic scouts", as well as long-range minelayers, for which long endurance, not high speed, was most important. The design was possibly influenced by the German "U-cruisers" of the Type U-139 and Type U-151 U-boat classes, although V-4, V-5, and V-6 were all larger than these. A raised gun platform was provided around the conning tower, and deck stowage for spare torpedoes was included under the platform and in the superstructure. V-6 and her near-sisters V-4 () and V-5 () were initially designed with larger and more powerful MAN-designed diesel engines than the Busch-Sulzer engines that propelled earlier V-boats, which were failures. Unfortunately, the specially-built engines failed to produce their design power, and some developed dangerous crankcase explosions. The engineering plant was replaced in 1941-42.
The as-built engine specifications were two BuEng-built, MAN-designed direct-drive 10-cylinder 4-cycle main diesel engines, each, with two BuEng MAN 4-cycle 6-cylinder auxiliary diesel engines, each, driving electrical generators. The auxiliary engines were for charging batteries or for increased surface speed via a diesel-electric system providing power to the main electric motors.
Similar to her sister built at Portsmouth, V-6 was built to a partial welded/partial riveted construction method. Welding was used to join the vertical keel plates, and also in other non-critical areas like the superstructure, piping brackets, and support framing. The inner and outer hulls were still entirely riveted.
Inter-war period
V-6 operated out of New London, conducting special submergence tests, until March 1931. She was renamed Nautilus on 19 February and given hull number SS-168 on 1 July. She proceeded to Pearl Harbor where she became flagship of Submarine Division 12 (SubDiv 12). Reassigned to SubDiv 13 at San Diego, California, 1935–1938, then re-homeported at Pearl Harbor, she maintained a regular schedule of training activities and fleet exercises and problems throughout the decade. In July 1941, she entered the Mare Island Naval Shipyard for modernization – radio equipment, external torpedo tubes (two bow and two stern-firing in the gun deck), re-engining (with four Winton diesels), and air conditioning – until the following spring.
First patrol – the Battle of Midway
She departed San Francisco, California, on 21 April 1942, reaching Pearl Harbor on 28 April. On 24 May, Nautilus (commanded by Lieutenant Commander William H. Brockman Jr.) got underway for her first war patrol, to Midway Island to help repel the expected attack by the Japanese fleet.
At 07:55, 4 June, while approaching the northern boundary of her patrol area near Midway Island, she sighted masts on the horizon. Japanese planes sighted the submarine at the same time and began strafing. After diving to , she continued observation. At 08:00, a formation of four enemy ships was sighted: the battleship , the cruiser , and two destroyers (misidentified, as they often were early in the war, as cruisers) in company. Within minutes the submarine was again sighted from the air and was bombed. Two of the "cruisers" closed for a kill and nine depth charges were dropped at a distance of about .
When the attack ceased, Nautilus rose to periscope depth. Ships surrounded her. Sighting on Kirishima, she fired two bow tubes; one misfired, one missed. At 08:30, a destroyer immediately headed for the boat, which dived to to wait out the depth charge attack. At 08:46, periscope depth was again ordered. The cruiser and two of the destroyers were now out of range; echo ranging by the third appeared too accurate for comfort. At 09:00, the periscope was raised again and an aircraft carrier was sighted. Nautilus changed course to close for an attack. The enemy destroyer followed suit and at 09:18 attacked with six depth charges.
By 09:55 echo ranging ceased and Nautilus raised her periscope. The carrier, her escorts, and the attacking destroyer had disappeared. (Unbeknownst to her skipper at the time, the counter-attacking , in her rush to rejoin the carrier, was tracked by 's VB-6, led by Wade McClusky, back to the Japanese task force.) At 12:53, a damaged aircraft carrier with two escorts was sighted. The carrier was identified as , but later research suggests it was probably . An hour later, Nautilus had moved into attack position. Between 13:59 and 14:05, after the battle was largely over, Nautilus launched four torpedoes at the carrier from less than . One failed to run, two ran erratically, and the fourth was a dud (a familiar problem for the Mark XIV), impacting amidships and breaking in half. Nautilus reported flames appeared along the length of the ship as the first hit, and the skeleton crew which had been aboard (survivors of which reported no torpedo hit) began going over the side, with the air flask of the dud torpedo acting as a life preserver for Japanese sailors.
Nautilus went to as a prolonged depth charge attack commenced. At 16:10, the submarine rose to periscope depth. The carrier, burning along her entire length, had been abandoned. At 19:41, Nautilus resumed her patrol, having expended five torpedoes and survived 42 depth charges, but accomplished little of substance. (Not until much later was the importance of her attack on the battleship, and its connection to McClusky, recognized.) Brockman was awarded a Navy Cross for his actions.
Between 7 June and 9 June, Nautilus replenished at Midway Island and then resumed her patrol to the west. By 20 June, she was operating off Honshū at the northern end of the Tokyo-Marshall Islands supply route. On 22 June, she damaged a destroyer guarding the entrance to the Sagami Sea off Ōshima. Three days later, she sank the destroyer and damaged an oil tanker. On 27 June, she sent a sampan to the bottom and on 28 June, after damaging a merchantman, underwent her severest depth charging, which forced her back to Pearl Harbor for repairs, 11 July to 7 August.
Second patrol – the Makin Raid
Nautilus departed Hawaiian waters for her second war patrol, a special troop transport mission of three weeks duration, 8 August. Sailing with submarine and carrying the Second Raider Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Evans F. Carlson (the Marine Raiders, or "Carlson's Raiders") she arrived off Makin Atoll on 16 August to stage a raid to divert Japanese attention from the Solomon Islands. Early the following morning, she sent the Raiders ashore on Butaritari Island in rubber boats rigged with outboard motors. At 07:03, she provided gunfire support against enemy positions at Ukiangong Point on Butaritari and shelled enemy ships in the lagoon, sinking two, a troop barge and a patrol boat. At 10:39, an enemy plane appeared and Nautilus dove. Two aerial attacks followed at 11:30 and at 12:55. The latter flight was made up of 12 planes, two of which landed in the lagoon to discharge troops. About 35 of the reinforcements made it to shore to fire on the Americans.
The Marines began to withdraw at 17:00. At 19:00, they launched their boats. Many were unable to clear the breakers without the aid of their damaged outboards. Only seven boats and less than 100 men returned that night. The remainder, less nine who were later captured and executed, discovered there were no Japanese left to fight and crossed to the lagoon side, whence they headed for the submarine after nightfall on 18 August. Thinking all surviving marines were on board, Nautilus and Argonaut set course for Pearl Harbor, arriving 25 August.
3rd–5th patrols, September 1942 – April 1943
On her third war patrol, from 15 September to 5 November, Nautilus returned to Japanese waters to join the submarine blockade chain stretched from the Kurile Islands to the Nansei Shoto. Despite heavy seas, which precluded periscope use and torpedo firing during much of the patrol, and mechanical breakdowns, which impeded approaches to targets, she torpedoed and sank three marus (Japanese merchant ships) and, in surface action, destroyed three sampans to add over 12,000 tons to her score. On 12 October, however, the patrol became one of her more perilous, as she took a heavy depth charging. Two days later, her crew noticed a slight oil slick in her wake. The hindering seas now protected by breaking up the trace. By 19 October, the leak had enlarged considerably and on 20 October, the first relatively calm day since the depth charging, air leaks were discovered. Nautilus was leaving a trail for Japanese defense patrols. Moving to a quieter area, with less aerial activity, she continued her patrol until 24 October when she sank Kenun Maru, then headed for home without sighting enemy planes. She reached Midway Island 31 October, performed temporary repairs, and continued on to Pearl Harbor.
During her fourth patrol, conducted in the Solomon Islands from on 13 December 1942 to on 4 February 1943, Nautilus rescued 26 adults and three children from Teop Harbor on 31 December and 1 January, then added the cargo ship Yosinogawa Maru to her kills and damaged a tanker, a freighter, and a destroyer. On 4 February, she arrived at Brisbane, debarked her passengers, and sailed for Pearl Harbor. Arriving 15 April, she departed five days later heading north. On 27 April, she put into Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and commenced instructing the 7th Infantry Division Provisional Scout Battalion in amphibious landings. She then embarked 109 Scouts (including Alaskan Native scouts of the Alaska Territorial Guard) and on 1 May, headed for Attu. There, on 11 May, she landed her "passengers" five hours before the main assault.
6th–8th patrols, September 1943 – April 1944
Overhaul at Mare Island occupied most of the summer and on 16 September Nautilus left Pearl Harbor to spend her sixth war patrol conducting photo-reconnaissance of the Gilbert Islands, concentrating on Tarawa, Kuma, Butaritari, Abemama, and Makin, all of which had been reinforced, particularly Tarawa, since the sub's 1942 excursion into those waters. The information, including continuous panoramic pictures of the coastlines and chart corrections, which she brought back to Pearl Harbor on 17 October, proved among the most useful intelligence gathered of the area prior to the invasion of Tarawa.
She returned to Tarawa 18 November to obtain last-minute information on weather and surf conditions, landing hazards and the results of recent bombardments. At 21:59 on 19 November, mistaking her for a Japanese submarine, the destroyer fired at her while she was off Maiana in the Gilbert Islands at , hitting her at the base of her conning tower with a five-inch (127 mm) shell which did not explode but damaged the main induction valve. Diving as soon as the water depth permitted, Nautilus was rigged for depth charging and the damage control party went to work. Nautilus avoided further damage and suffered no casualties, but reached a depth of before her crew gained control of her. Within two hours repairs were sufficient to allow Nautilus to continue with her primary mission: landing a 78-man scouting party, composed of 5th Amphibious Reconnaissance Company Marines and an Australian scout, on Abemama.
At midnight 20–21 November, Nautilus lay off an island in the Abemama Atoll, Kenna to discharge her passengers. By 15:00, all were safely ashore. On the afternoon of 22 November, Nautilus provided fire support to bring the tiny (25-man) enemy garrison out of their bunkers. This proved accurate, killing 14; the remainder committed suicide. By the time the main assault force arrived on 26 November, Abemama had been secured and preparations to turn it into an air base for the Marshall Islands campaign had begun.
For actions during this mission, Commander William D. Irvin, Nautilus Commanding Officer, was awarded the Navy Cross.
Nautilus returned to Pearl Harbor on 4 December to prepare for her eighth war patrol. Conducted north of Palau and west of the Mariana Islands from 27 January. On 21 March 1944 she sank the ex-hospital ship America Maru (she had been reverted to a transport December 1943) and damaged three cargo ships. On 26 April, Nautilus sailed for Brisbane, whence she departed 29 May to begin a series of special missions in support of guerrilla and reconnaissance activities in the Philippines.
9th–14th patrols, May 1944 – January 1945
On her ninth patrol, from 29 May to 11 June, she carried ammunition, oil, and dry stores to Philippine guerrillas under Colonel R.V. Bowler on Mindanao. Between 12 June and 27 June, she transported a similar cargo to Negros Island and embarked evacuees, including one German POW, for Darwin. During her 11th patrol, from 30 June to 27 July, she landed a reconnaissance party and 12 tons of stores on North Pandan Island, and more supplies to Colonel Kangleon on Leyte and Colonel Abcede on Mindanao. On her 12th, 13th and 14th patrols, she returned to the central Philippines, landed personnel and supplies at various points on Mindanao and Luzon, and carried evacuees to Australia. On 25 September, during the first of these three patrols, she grounded on Iuisan Shoal. Forced to lighten her load, her evacuees, mail, captured documents, and cargo were sent ashore. All secret materials were burned. Her reserve fuel tanks were blown dry, variable ballast was blown overboard and six-inch (152 mm) ammunition jettisoned. With the blowing of her main ballast tanks she was finally able to get off the reef within three and a half hours, despite the receding tide, and clear the area by dawn.
During her 13th patrol, on 31 October 1944, Nautilus finished off , which had run aground on a reef and could not be recovered. Numerous attempts to torpedo the wreck had failed as torpedoes detonated on the reef. Nautiluss six-inch (152 mm) guns, however, scored 55 hits, and her report states, "It is doubtful that any equipment in Darter at 11:30 this date would be of any value to Japan – except as scrap."
Nautilus completed her 14th, and last, patrol at Darwin on 30 January 1945. From Australia, she was routed on to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she arrived 25 May for inactivation. Decommissioned with a bottle of champagne over the forward 6 inch (152 mm) gun on 30 June, she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register 25 July and sold 16 November, to the North American Smelting Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for scrapping.
In popular culture
Season 2, Episode 26 of the American television series The Silent Service, first broadcast in 1958, dramatizes the Teop Harbor rescue of 24 December 1942.
Awards
Presidential Unit Citation, for her aggressive war patrols in enemy-controlled waters.
American Defense Service Medal
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with 14 battle stars
World War II Victory Medal
References
Citations
Bibliography
Campbell, John Naval Weapons of World War Two (Naval Institute Press, 1985),
DiGiulian, Tony Navweaps.com 6"/53 caliber gun
fleetsubmarine.com
Friedman, Norman "US Submarines through 1945: An Illustrated Design History", Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1995, .
Gardiner, Robert and Chesneau, Roger Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946, Conway Maritime Press, 1980. .
Hinman, Charles R., and Douglas E. Campbell. The Submarine Has No Friends: Friendly Fire Incidents Involving U.S. Submarines During World War II. Syneca Research Group, Inc., 2019. .
Johnston, David "No More Heads or Tails: The Adoption of Welding in U.S. Navy Submarines", The Submarine Review, June 2020, pp. 46–64.
Lenton, H. T. American Submarines (Navies of the Second World War) (Doubleday, 1973),
Navsource.org USS Nautilus (SS-168) photo page
Pigboats.com V-5 and V-6 page
Silverstone, Paul H. U.S. Warships of World War II (Ian Allan, 1965),
Whitman, Edward C. "The Navy's Variegated V-Class: Out of One, Many?" Undersea Warfare, Fall 2003, Issue 20
External links
Kill Record: USS Nautilus
El USS Nautilus torpedea al America Maru (Spanish)
Naval Historical Society of Australia
United States Narwhal-class submarines
V-boats
Ships built in Vallejo, California
1930 ships
World War II submarines of the United States
Ships of the Aleutian Islands campaign
Ships of the Battle of Midway
Maritime incidents in November 1943
Friendly fire incidents of World War II |
421981 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substitute%20good | Substitute good | In microeconomics, two goods are substitutes if the products could be used for the same purpose by the consumers. That is, a consumer perceives both goods as similar or comparable, so that having more of one good causes the consumer to desire less of the other good. Contrary to complementary goods and independent goods, substitute goods may replace each other in use due to changing economic conditions. An example of substitute goods is Coca-Cola and Pepsi; the interchangeable aspect of these goods is due to the similarity of the purpose they serve, i.e fulfilling customers' desire for a soft drink. These types of substitutes can be referred to as close substitutes.
Substitute goods are commodity which the consumer demanded to be used in place of another good.
Economic theory describes two goods as being close substitutes if three conditions hold:
products have the same or similar performance characteristics
products have the same or similar occasion for use and
products are sold in the same geographic area
Performance characteristics describe what the product does for the customer; a solution to customers' needs or wants. For example, a beverage would quench a customer's thirst.
A product's occasion for use describes when, where and how it is used. For example, orange juice and soft drinks are both beverages but are used by consumers in different occasions (i.e. breakfast vs during the day).
Two products are in different geographic market if they are sold in different locations, it is costly to transport the goods or it is costly for consumers to travel to buy the goods.
Only if the two products satisfy the three conditions, will they be classified as close substitutes according to economic theory. The opposite of a substitute good is a complementary good, these are goods that are dependent on another. An example of complementary goods are cereal and milk.
An example of substitute goods are tea and coffee. These two goods satisfy the three conditions: tea and coffee have similar performance characteristics (they quench a thirst), they both have similar occasions for use (in the morning) and both are usually sold in the same geographic area (consumers can buy both at their local supermarket). Some other common examples include margarine and butter, and McDonald's and Burger King.
Formally, good is a substitute for good if when the price of rises the demand for rises, see figure 1.
Let be the price of good . Then, is a substitute for if: .
Cross elasticity of demand
The fact that one good is substitutable for another has immediate economic consequences: insofar as one good can be substituted for another, the demands for the two goods will be interrelated by the fact that customers can trade off one good for the other if it becomes advantageous to do so. Cross-price elasticity helps us understand the degree of substitutability of the two products. An increase in the price of a good will (ceteris paribus) increase demand for its substitutes, while a decrease in the price of a good will decrease demand for its substitutes, see Figure 2.
The relationship between demand schedules determines whether goods are classified as substitutes or complements. The cross-price elasticity of demand shows the relationship between two goods, it captures the responsiveness of the quantity demanded of one good to a change in price of another good.
Cross-Price Elasticity of Demand (Ex,y) is calculated with the following formula:
Ex,y = Percentage Change in Quantity Demanded for Good X / Percentage Change in Price of Good Y
The cross-price elasticity may be positive or negative, depending on whether the goods are complements or substitutes. A substitute good is a good with a positive cross elasticity of demand. This means that, if good is a substitute for good , an increase in the price of will result in a leftward movement along the demand curve of and cause the demand curve for to shift out. A decrease in the price of will result in a rightward movement along the demand curve of and cause the demand curve for to shift in. Furthermore, perfect substitutes have a higher cross elasticity of demand than imperfect substitutes do.
Types
Perfect and imperfect substitutes
Perfect substitutes
Perfect substitutes refer to a pair of goods with uses identical to one another. In that case, the utility of a combination of the two goods is an increasing function of the sum of the quantity of each good. That is, the more the consumer can consume (in total quantity), the higher level of utility will be achieved, see figure 3.
Perfect substitutes have a linear utility function and a constant marginal rate of substitution, see figure 3. If goods X and Y are perfect substitutes, any different consumption bundle will result in the consumer obtaining the same utility level for all the points on the indifference curve (utility function). Let a consumption bundle be represented by (X,Y), then, a consumer of perfect substitutes would receive the same level of utility from (20,10) or (30,0).
Consumers of perfect substitutes base their rational decision making process on prices only. Evidently, the consumer will choose the cheapest bundle to maximise their profits. If the prices of the goods differed, there would be no demand for the more expensive good. Producers and sellers of perfect substitute goods directly compete with each other, that is, they are known to be in direct price competition.
An example of perfect substitutes is butter from two different producers; the producer may be different but their purpose and usage are the same.
Perfect substitutes have a high cross-elasticity of demand. For example, if Country Crock and Imperial margarine have the same price listed for the same amount of spread, but one brand increases its price, its sales will fall by a certain amount. In response, the other brand's sales will increase by the same amount.
Imperfect substitutes
Imperfect substitutes, also known as close substitutes, have a lesser level of substitutability, and therefore exhibit variable marginal rates of substitution along the consumer indifference curve. The consumption points on the curve offer the same level of utility as before, but compensation depends on the starting point of the substitution. Unlike perfect substitutes (see figure 4), the indifference curves of imperfect substitutes are not linear and the marginal rate of substitution is different for different set of combinations on the curve. Close substitute goods are similar products that target the same customer groups and satisfy the same needs, but have slight differences in characteristics. Sellers of close substitute goods are therefore in indirect competition with each other.
Beverages are a great example of imperfect substitutes. As the price of Coca-Cola rises, consumers could be expected to substitute to Pepsi. However, many consumers prefer one brand over the other. Consumers who prefer one brand over the other will not trade between them one-to-one. Rather, a consumer who prefers Coca-Cola (for example) will be willing to exchange more Pepsi for less Coca-Cola, in other words, consumers who prefer Coca-Cola would be willing to pay more.
The degree to which a good has a perfect substitute depends on how specifically the good is defined. The broader the definition of a good, the easier it is for the good to have a substitute good. On the other hand, a good narrowly defined will be likely to not have a substitute good. For example, different types of cereal generally are substitutes for each other, but Rice Krispies cereal, which is a very narrowly defined good as compared to cereal generally, has few, if any substitutes. To illustrate this further, we can imagine that while both Rice Krispies and Froot Loops are types of cereal, they are imperfect substitutes, as the two are very different types of cereal. However, generic brands of Rice Krispies, such as Malt-o-Meal's Crispy Rice would be a perfect substitute for Kellogg's Rice Krispies.
Imperfect substitutes have a low cross-elasticity of demand. If two brands of cereal have the same prices before one's price is raised, we can expect sales to fall for that brand. However, sales will not raise by the same amount for the other brand, as there are many types of cereal that are equally substitutable for the brand which has raised its price; consumer preferences determine which brands pick up their losses.
Gross and net substitutes
If two goods are imperfect substitutes, economists can distinguish them as gross substitutes or net substitutes. Good is a gross substitute for good if, when the price of good increases, spending on good increases, as described above. Gross substitutability is not a symmetric relationship. Even if is a gross substitute for , it may not be true that is a gross substitute for .
Two goods are net substitutes when the demand for good X increases when the price of good Y increases and the utility derived from the substitute remains constant.
Goods and are said to be net substitutes if
That is, goods are net substitutes if they are substitutes for each other under a constant utility function. Net substitutability has the desirable property that, unlike gross substitutability, it is symmetric:
That is, if good is a net substitute for good , then good is also a net substitute for good . The symmetry of net substitution is both intuitively appealing and theoretically useful.
The common misconception is that competitive equilibrium is non-existent when it comes to products that are net substitutes. Like most times when products are gross substitutes, they will also likely be net substitutes, hence most gross substitute preferences supporting a competitive equilibrium also serve as examples of net substitutes doing the same. This misconception can be further clarified by looking at the nature of net substitutes which exists in a purely hypothetical situation where a fictitious entity interferes to shut down the income effect and maintain a constant utility function. This defeats the point of a competitive equilibrium, where no such intervention takes place. The equilibrium is decentralized and left to the producers and consumers to determine and arrive at an equilibrium price.
Within-category and cross-category substitutes
Within-category substitutes are goods that are members of the same taxonomic category such as goods sharing common attributes (e.g., chocolate, chairs, station wagons).
Cross-category substitutes are goods that are members of different taxonomic categories but can satisfy the same goal. A person who wants chocolate but cannot acquire it, for example, might instead buy ice cream to satisfy the goal of having a dessert.
Whether goods are cross-category or within-category substitutes influences the utility derived by consumers. People exhibit a strong preference for within-category substitutes over cross-category substitutes, despite cross-category substitutes being more effective at satisfying customers' needs. Across ten sets of different foods, 79.7% of research participants believed that a within-category substitute would better satisfy their craving for a food they could not have than a cross-category substitute. Unable to acquire a desired Godiva chocolate, for instance, a majority reported that they would prefer to eat a store-brand chocolate (a within-category substitute) than a chocolate-chip granola bar (a cross-category substitute). This preference for within-category substitutes appears, however, to be misguided. Because within-category substitutes are more similar to the missing good, their inferiority to it is more noticeable. This creates a negative contrast effect, and leads within-category substitutes to be less satisfying substitutes than cross-category substitutes.
Unit-demand goods
Unit-demand goods are categories of goods from which consumer wants only a single item. If the consumer has two unit-demand items, then his utility is the maximum of the utilities he gains from each of these items. For example, consider a consumer that wants a means of transportation, which may be either a car or a bicycle. The consumer prefers a car to a bicycle. If the consumer has both a car and a bicycle, then the consumer uses only the car. The economic theory of unit elastic demand illustrates the inverse relationship between price and quantity. Unit-demand goods are always substitutes.
In perfect and monopolistic market structures
Perfect competition
Perfect competition is solely based on firms having equal conditions and the continuous pursuit of these conditions, regardless of the market size One of the requirements for perfect competition is that the goods of competing firms should be perfect substitutes. Products sold by different firms have minimal differences in capabilities, features, and pricing. Thus, buyers cannot distinguish between products based on physical attributes or intangible value. When this condition is not satisfied, the market is characterized by product differentiation. A perfectly competitive market is a theoretical benchmark and does not exist in reality. However, perfect substitutability is significant in the era of deregulation because there are usually several competing providers (e.g., electricity suppliers) selling the same good which result in aggressive price competition.
Monopolistic competition
Monopolistic competition characterizes an industry in which many firms offer products or services that are close, but not perfect substitutes. Monopolistic firms have little power to set curtail supply or raise prices to increase profits. Thus, the firms will try to differentiate their product through branding and marketing to capture above market returns. Some common examples of monopolistic industries include gasoline, milk, Internet connectivity (ISP services), electricity, telephony, and airline tickets. Since firms offer similar products, demand is highly elastic in monopolistic competition. As a result of demand being very responsive to price changes, consumers will switch to the cheapest alternative as a result of price increases. This is known as switching costs, or essentially what the consumers are willing to give up.
Market effects
The Michael Porter invented "Porter's Five Forces" to analyse an industry's attractiveness and likely profitability. Alongside competitive rivalry, buyer power, supplier power and threat of new entry, Porter identifies the threat of substitution as one of the five important industry forces. The threat of substitution refers to the likelihood of customers finding alternative products to purchase. When close substitutes are available, customers can easily and quickly forgo buying a company's product by finding other alternatives. This can weaken a company's power which threatens long-term profitability. The risk of substitution can be considered high when:
Customers have slight switching costs between two available substitutes.
The quality and performance offered by a close substitute are of a higher standard.
Customers of a product have low loyalty towards the brand or product, hence being more sensitive to price changes.
Additionally substitute goods have a large impact on markets, consumer and sellers through the following factors:
Markets characterised by close/perfect substitute goods experience great volatility in prices. This volatility negatively impacts producers' profits, as it is possible to earn higher profits in markets with fewer substitute products. That is, perfect substitute results in profits being driven down to zero as seen in perfectly competitive markets equilibrium.
As a result of the intense competition caused the availability of substitute goods, low quality products can arise. Since prices are reduced to capture a larger share of the market, firms try to reduce their utilisation of resources which in turn will reduce their costs.
In a market with close/perfect substitutes, customers have a wide range of products to choose from. As the number of substitutes increase, the probability that every consumer selects what is right for them also increases. That is, consumers can reach a higher overall utility level from the availability of substitute products.
See also
Competitive equilibrium
Currency substitution
Fungible
List of economics topics
References
Goods (economics)
Consumer theory
Perfect competition
Utility function types |
421984 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzler%20%28Marvel%20Comics%29 | Dazzler (Marvel Comics) | Dazzler (Alison Blaire) is a superheroine appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, often in association with the X-Men. She first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #130 (February 1980).
A mutant with the ability to convert sound vibrations into light and energy beams, Dazzler was developed as a cross-promotional, multi-media creation between Casablanca Records and Marvel Comics until the tie-ins were dropped in 1980. The character was created by a committee of Marvel staff, principally writer/editor Tom DeFalco and illustrator John Romita Jr. She starred in a self-titled series in the early 1980s which lasted forty-two issues, a Marvel Graphic Novel titled Dazzler: The Movie, a four-issue limited series co-starring The Beast titled Beauty and the Beast, and later joined the cast of Uncanny X-Men. She has also featured in other Marvel teams.
Dazzler has been described as one of Marvel's most notable and powerful female heroes, being labeled as an LGBT icon.
Dazzler made her live-action debut in Dark Phoenix played by Halston Sage.
Creation
Dazzler was originally conceived in early 1979 as a joint venture between Marvel Comics and Casablanca Records, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group that had achieved considerable success with notable disco acts including Donna Summer and Village People. Accounts differ as to which party made the first move; in 1986 Louise Simonson would tell Amazing Heroes that Casablanca approached Marvel; however, in a 2011 blog post Jim Shooter would credit the idea to Marvel employee Alice Donenfeld and based on the success of The Archies, who later pitched it to Casablanca supremo Neil Bogart. Bogart was enthusiastic, not only wanting to produce music 'by' the character (who initially had the working name of 'Disco Queen') but also launch it with a half-hour animated special featuring numerous Marvel characters. Marvel began shaping the character; Shooter assigned the development to Tom DeFalco (who, like Shooter, had experience working at Archie Comics), Roger Stern, Roberta 'Dickie' Mackenzie and John Romita Jr. while continuing to oversee the project himself. Shooter recalled that DeFalco originally pitched the name 'Evelyn Free' (a pun on "evil and free") for the character's civilian identity before the group decided on Alison Blaire. At this stage much about the character was in flux; Romita Jr. initially designed her as African American, heavily based on singer/actress Grace Jones with a costume inspired by the skin-tight and revealing eveningwear he had seen on women at New York nightclubs; her name was changed, first to Disco Dazzler and then to simply Dazzler at the suggestion of Stern; and initially her powers were to be an ability to make people tell the truth. DeFalco objected to the latter, feeling it was "not very interesting for a comic book". Instead he successfully suggested that as her name was Dazzler light-based powers made more sense. Casablanca held final approval over the character at this stage, and vetoed some of Marvel's ideas. DeFalco would recall that the numerous delays led the creative team to believe disco "would be dead" before Dazzler's debut as the various parties hammered out the initial story, which DeFalco and Romita turned into an origin story
Meanwhile, the multimedia side of the project changed several times. Shooter had produced a pitch for the TV special that had impressed Bogart so much he wanted to turn it into a live-action special with many stars he had under contract (including Cher, Donna Summer, Kiss, Lenny and Squiggy, Robin Williams and the Village People) to appear as Marvel characters. However, soon afterwards Casablanca struck financial trouble, and Bogart was forced out of the company. Instead filmmaker John Derek showed interest in Dazzler as a potential film vehicle for his wife Bo, who were looking to build on the success of 10 with studio Filmworks. As such the comic character was redesigned to more closely resemble Derek herself, becoming a white blonde, requiring Romita Jr. to redraw the work already done on the comic. The artist was unimpressed with the changes to the lead character. According to DeFalco, the Dereks' involvement in the project ended after the poor reception of their vehicle Tarzan, the Ape Man
Publishing history
Initially Marvel had planned to release the 34-page Dazzler comic as part of the Marvel Comics Super Special series, which generally dealt with media adaptations, while some thought was also given to releasing it as a black-and-white magazine. After Casablanca and Filmworks both withdrew, Marvel shipped the concept around other record labels and film studios without success. While this was happening, Dazzler had appeared in other titles to build anticipation. The character had debuted in Uncanny X-Men #130 (dated February 1980) as an ally of the X-Men, and subsequently guested in issues of Amazing Spider-Man (#203, April 1980) and Fantastic Four (#217, April 1980). Due to the character still being in flux while these issues were produced they featured some inconsistencies - Richard Gagnon of Amazing Heroes noted the character was considerably more streetwise in her X-Men appearance than she would be for most of her subsequent appearances, while in the Spider-Man guest spot Dazzler fired beams from her eyes due to DeFalco having to tell Marv Wolfman to simply take pot luck over which of the three potential variations in powers Casablanca were mulling over at the time would be finalised.
Dazzler (1981-1985)
Rather than simply have the work done go to waste, Shooter meanwhile instead decided to repackage it as an ongoing comic series. DeFalco would write additional exposition and other material to turn the 34-page one-shot into two 22-page single issues. As Romita Jr. had moved on to other projects an uncredited Walt Simonson provided the art for the new pages. In order to make the debut still something of an event, Shooter decided it would be Marvel's first ongoing series that was exclusive to the direct market - i.e. sold only to specialist comic stores, rather than also to newsstands - a model used by several smaller independent publishers. This also made the comic non-returnable for retailers. Given a healthy promotional push, the first issue - dated May 1981 - was a resounding commercial success for Marvel, with around 400,000 copies sold to stores - around double the number of most of the company's best-selling titles.
With the Romita Jr. material running out midway through the third issue (which also featured work from Alan Kupperberg), Frank Springer became the title's new regular artist. The first issues contained a plethora of Marvel's finest as guest stars as a legacy of the book's origin as a one-off special, and the pattern was kept up for the early issues of the title to support the new character's sales - Dazzler #3-4 featured Doctor Doom; #6-7 guest-starred Hulk; #9 saw an appearance by Quasar; and #10-11 saw Dazzler cross paths with Galactus. Some of these appearances drew criticism due to the unsubtle way many of Marvel's established heroes were in awe of the newcomer. After issue 6 DeFalco left the title, partly due to his growing editorial commitments at Marvel and partly because he was disagreeing over the direction of the series with Springer, who wanted to draw more on romance comics than traditional superhero fare. Dazzler #8 also saw another talent added to the book, with Bill Sienkiewicz contributing the first of what would be a number of covers for the series.
DeFalco's replacement was relative newcomer Danny Fingeroth, initially working from his predecessor's outlines. Fingeroth would also write Dazzler's first appearance in alternative universe anthology title What If, contributing a story that was based on the Galactus storyline from Dazzler #10-11. Issue #17 saw the start of a short stint by the X-Men team-member Angel as a suitor; Fingeroth would admit this was an attempt to draw readers to the series, which had not kept up its early sales. As with other guest appearances, Angel's behaviour in his Dazzler appearances drew mixed responses, with Gagnon describing him as "boorish". Dazzler #20 introduced the villains Doctor Sax and Johnny Guitar, named by Fingeroth after the Jack Kerouac book and the Nicholas Ray film respectively, while #21 was an extra-sized issue exploring the fates of Alison's parents; Fingeroth felt such human interest was an important part of a superhero series' appeal to readers. It also featured another unusual attempt to make the title stand out - a photo cover of model June McDonald posing as Dazzler. The following issue saw Fingeroth also leave the title; Springer briefly wrote and drew the title, before scripts by Shooter and Ken McDonald. Despite a change of direction that saw Dazzler change from a singer in New York to an aspiring actress in Los Angeles (which also saw the much-derided original costume finally dropped for a series of leotards) the series' fortunes failed to improve, and from #31 the title switched to bi-monthly publication. Dazzler #32 saw Mike Carlin take over for an ultimately short stint as writer, and shortly afterwards Geof Isherwood started art duties on the title.
In an attempt to draw more attention to the series Shooter, Springer and Vince Colletta created Dazzler the Movie, the twelfth entry in the Marvel Graphic Novel series; the story publicly outed Alison as a mutant, a development that would drive subsequent issues. It did little to boost sales, and Gagnon would later call Dazzler the Movie "the most extravagant waste of the graphic novel format to date". In the regular series, Dazzler #33 featured a Sienkiewicz cover closely referencing Michael Jackson's hugely popular Thriller music video, and cameos by long-dormant Marvel humour characters Millie the Model and Chili Storm.
Another attempt to find an audience came with the spin-off mini-series Beauty and the Beast, pairing Dazzler with the popular Hank McCoy, at the time a member of the Defenders. The series was written by Ann Nocenti, and along with Louise Simonson's Power Pack and Trina Robbins' fashion comic Misty was an attempt by Marvel to find the female audience the audience had lost over the previous decade. To this end Nocenti attempted to write Beauty and the Beast as a romance comic, though she would later reflect it was a "tough assignment" pairing a "blonde airhead" with a "deep intellectual".
Dazzler #38 saw another new direction, with the popular Archie Goodwin as writer and Paul Chadwick as artist. Goodwin redesigned the character's costume and planned to return the series to superheroics rather than personal and showbiz drama. He would later admit he took the Dazzler series on as no-one else wanted it and he needed work at the time. Chadwick had caught Goodwin's eye after pitching his creator-owned series Concrete when the latter was an Epic Comics editor. Goodwin also introduced bounty hunter O. Z. Chase to the series as a supporting character. The relaunch attracted a mild improvement in critical response, but following Dazzler #40 (which tied into the Secret Wars II crossover) Goodwin and Chadwick were told the series would be ending after two further issues due to poor sales, ending after #42 (dated March 1986). While sanguine about his experiences on the book, Chadwick would later note the modifications to the cover of the final issue - which saw another artist add the Beast to his original work - was a factor in his decision to return to launching Concrete rather than to continue working with Marvel.
At the time the series was not greatly mourned; reviewing the final issue of the series for Amazing Heroes, R. A. Jones felt Dazzler would "not be missed" and criticized its lack of success across several genres - though also expressed that the book might have been more successful if Goodwin and Chadwick had arrived earlier. Shortly afterwards in the same publication, Richard Gagnon described it as "easily one of the worst comics that Marvel Comics Group has ever put out".
Retrospective reviews have been kinder, however. Angelo Delos Trinos of CBR.com ranked the Dazzler comic book series 5th in their "10 Times Comics Changed The World" list, writing, "The '80s were some of comics' most profitable years, and this was thanks in part to the growing speculator market. Publishers were already moving away from young readers to adults who treated comics more as an investment than populist entertainment. They finalized this shift after Dazzler #1, by Tom Defalco, John Romita Senior and Junior, John Buscema, Alfredo Alcala, Bob McCleod, and Glynis Wein became a blockbuster."
Subsequent appearances
Following the cancellation of Dazzler, the character was considered as a possible founding member of X-Factor, but the decision to resurrect Jean Grey put that idea aside. Instead, Dazzler would find a home in the pages of Uncanny X-Men, still under the aegis of Chris Claremont - who had scripted the character's debut appearance. In-fiction Dazzler had twice turned down membership of the X-Men before finally joining the team from Uncanny X-Men #214 (dated February 1987) and would go on to be a member of the team until #248, when she was effectively written out after travelling through the Siege Perilous and losing her memory.
Subsequently, Dazzler made only occasional appearances between 1989 and 2005, before returning to regularly featuring in monthly publication for the first time in 15 years when she joined the cast of New Excalibur. New Excalibur also saw Dazzler gain the power of being able to instantly resurrect herself, a development that was effectively forgotten about soon afterwards. After the title was canceled, Dazzler was brought back as a supporting character in Uncanny X-Men written by Matt Fraction.
In February 2010, Marvel published a one-shot Dazzler special by writer Jim McCann and artist Kalman Andrasofszky as part of the Women of Marvel series. According to Diamond Comic Distributors, the special was the 115th best selling comic book of May 2010. Doug Zawisza of CBR.com called Dazzler #1 a ""Greatest Hits" comic album of Dazzler's best material", while Bryan Joel of IGN, calling the character "a great candidate to show off the themes central to the "Women of Marvel" drive."
The 2012 series X-Treme X-Men featured Dazzler as the leader of a dimension-hopping X-Men team, and later that year she appeared Uncanny X-Men as an agent of superspy outfit S.H.I.E.L.D. Beginning in May 2015, Dazzler appeared as one of the main characters in A-Force, an all-female Avengers launched by G. Willow Wilson, Marguerite Bennett, and Jorge Molina during Marvel's "Secret Wars" storyline.
2018 saw the character feature in another starring one-shot, Dazzler: X-Song. The issue was the 100th best selling comic book in June 2018. and received positive reviews, with Mike Fugere of CBR.com referring to it as "the most important X-story Marvel has published in years", noting "Maybe Dazzler isn’t the beckon of social progress we were looking for, but it seems she has become the one we have." Joshua Davison of Bleeding Cool stated, "'Dazzler: X-Song #1 is an excellent self-contained story centering around the ever-lovable Allison Blaire of the X-Men. The themes are interesting, the characters that are supposed to be likable succeed in being so, and the art looks great."
Fictional character biography
Early life
Alison Blaire was born in Gardendale, New York to Carter Blaire and Katherine Blaire. Her mutant powers first manifest when she is in junior high school. An aspiring singer, she volunteers to perform at her school dance when her light-generating abilities first appear. Everyone at the dance assumes it is a technologically generated special effect, an assumption commonly made before she reveals herself to be a mutant later in her life.
Becoming Dazzler
Using the stage name "Dazzler", Alison sets out to make a name for herself in the music industry, using her light powers and dancing ability to enhance her performances. It is at one of her shows that Alison first meets the X-Men while they are attacked by the forces of the Hellfire Club. Angry at the interruption of her show, Alison lashes out in anger at the Hellfire intruders, unintentionally making one member catatonic. Alison subsequently aids the X-Men in finding Kitty Pryde. She had always assumed that life as a disco queen would be exciting but finds the fight with the X-Men's enemies going a bit too far, and turns down their offer to join the team.
Dazzler hid her status as a mutant from all but those closest to her. After acquainting herself with the various Marvel Comics superheroes, Alison finds herself continually using her abilities to fight both ordinary criminals and rogue superhumans—often at the expense of her career ambitions. On one occasion, she meets Spider-Man, teaming up against the Lightmaster. She later battled the Enchantress, is overwhelmed by Doctor Doom, the Absorbing Man and then fights off Nightmare. She briefly allied with the hero Blue Shield, and aids the X-Men and Spider-Woman against the misguided Caliban. On another occasion, she battles and defeats the Hulk, and establishes a long-standing feud with the then-mentally unstable Rogue. She also has a romantic affair with Warren Worthington III. In the course of her inadvertent adventures, she even encounters the planet-devouring Galactus, who initially thought she was of little import and generally ignores her. Nevertheless, Galactus temporarily endowed her with cosmic energy so she can retrieve the herald Terrax. Alison was also asked to audition for a place in the Avengers; she declined, saying that the superhero life was of no interest to her.
Moving to Los Angeles
Dazzler moved to Los Angeles in a vain attempt to help her half-sister Lois London, who has the mutant power to kill anyone with a touch, but has little to no control over the ability. While in Los Angeles, Alison attempts careers in fitness training, dancing, modeling, and acting. Influenced both by her lover Roman Nekoboh and her desire to abate the growing anti-mutant sentiment, Alison publicly declared her mutant identity soon afterwards. The revelation backfired, destroying her reputation and career and inflaming anti-mutant sentiment - also sending Alison into a depressive state. Forced into hiding, she spent some time as a keyboard player and back-up vocalist in fellow mutant singer Lila Cheney's band.
A covert anti-mutant army unit accidentally transformed one of its own members, a latent mutant named Zalme, into a creature called Dinosaur Man, who attacked Dazzler.
Joining the X-Men
While on tour, the band's plane crashed and they were rescued by Cannonball and Joshua. Lila had been knocked out, so Dazzler used the music Joshua plays at the scene to blast a hole through the wreckage. She was later possessed by the psychic mutant Malice; after an encounter with the X-Men coming to warn her about the Marauders, Dazzler was freed from possession and became a member of the team. During her tenure with the X-Men, Dazzler received training, attains greater control over her powers, and develops a romance with the extra-dimensional Longshot. She was also forced to work alongside the now-reformed Rogue, which caused tension between them at first. Over time, Alison eventually found Rogue to be genuinely remorseful and forgave her teammate. Eventually she and her teammates in the X-Men enter the mystical Siege Perilous.
Amnesia and Mojoworld
Discovered in an amnesiac state washed up on a beach by her former bodyguard Guido, she was nursed back to health by Guido and Lila, though their efforts prove unsuccessful in helping restore her memory. Her memory was eventually restored when she was found by Longshot some time later. Devastated by the loss of her career in the interim, Alison ventured to Longshot's native dimension Mojoworld, joining her lover and Lila in rebellion against the tyrant Mojo.
Alison's life on Mojoworld was fraught; she suffered an apparent miscarriage and the apparent corruption of the X-Babies before returning to Earth without Longshot. Despite this, Dazzler helped Jean Grey fight against Magneto on Genosha. She and Jean lead a small band of mutants to back up Cyclops and Wolverine. She was apparently incinerated by Magneto, but was actually alive and well, having used a hard-light hologram of herself to distract Magneto while they recovered Professor X After returning to Westchester, the X-Men offered Alison help, but she declined and left the mansion.
Many years later, Shatterstar and Rictor encountered a past-version of Dazzler while time-traveling through Mojoworld. At this point in her life, Dazzler and Longshot were still married and active in the revolt against Mojo. Rictor discovered Dazzler just as she was about to give birth to the child that had been believed to result in a miscarriage. The surviving infant was revealed to be Shatterstar, resolving speculation that Shatterstar actually was the biological child of Dazzler and Longshot. Exhausted from her ordeal, Dazzler passed out, and Shatterstar revealed the necessity of wiping both her and Longshot's memories of the event, and taking his infant self a century into Mojoworld's future, to be raised as a warrior away from his birth parents.
New Excalibur
Dazzler later re-established her musical career by marketing her original, signature disco image as part of the Techno/Trance genre. Alison moved her career abroad to England and joined with X-Men allies such as the Juggernaut and Captain Britain. Later she was reunited with Longshot, although he was suffering from amnesia and did not remember her, though he later regained his feelings for her and some of his memories. Longshot left the Exiles to re-establish a relationship with Dazzler but they soon parted ways, due in part to Dazzler's frustration with other women's attraction to Longshot and the realization that Longshot is no longer the man she loved.
Return to the X-Men
Alison subsequently re-joined the X-Men in San Francisco while continuing her revived musical career. Later she took part in the fight against the Skrull invasion of Earth. After a night of drinking with team-mates Northstar and Pixie, Dazzler came under attack by the Sisterhood. In retaliation, she later accompanied Emma Frost, Storm and Karma in an attack on the Sisterhood in San Francisco, where she engaged a mind controlled Psylocke in battle. While Psylocke gained the upper hand, Dazzler absorbed all the sound from the city outside, which she turned into a beam of light that burnt the right side of Psylocke's face off. After the Sisterhood retreated, Dazzler is happily reunited with Psylocke after she regained control.
Along with Gambit, Anole, Northstar, Cannonball, Pixie and Trance, Dazzler traveled to Limbo to rescue Magik. However, they were overwhelmed by the demons. She was rescued by Northstar but they come under attack from a possessed Gambit, who turns her into a state much like Gambit's Death persona. They eventually infected the other X-Men in Limbo They were freed thanks to Magik's Soulsword.
During the Schism between Cyclops and Wolverine, Dazzler chose to remain in San Francisco with Cyclops's side. Dazzler was then asked to lead a "Street Team" of X-Men, to which she agreed. As a result, she worked alongside Boom Boom and Lifeguard.
Dazzler was later summoned to Utopia to help Cyclops and Danger with a Ghost Box; when opened it showed several alternate reality X-Men fighting an evil version of Professor X. She subsequently gets sucked through a portal and is whisked away from Earth-616, narrowly avoiding the conflict between the X-Men and the Avengers. She becomes team leader after Emmeline Frost opts to stay on a world where mutants are gods. Dazzler was later reunited with former teammate Sage when she tried to rescue a child version of Nightcrawler. Her leadership skills and abilities impressed both Cyclops and Wolverine, the latter of whom offered her a position at the Jean Grey School, believing she would be an invaluable resource to the students. Reluctant to accept the invitation after having spent a year traversing and saving the multiverse as well as witnessing the death of some of her friends, Dazzler opted instead to make a decision at a later time; Wolverine advises the offer still stands and to contact when she figures things out.
Instead, in an attempt to better understand the mutant community and Cyclops's talk of mutant revolution, Maria Hill personally asked Dazzler to become an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., a proposition Alison accepts. However, soon after her first mission Dazzler was poisoned and replaced by the shapeshifter Mystique. Dazzler was later rescued by Magneto, and joined Cyclops's Uncanny X-Men team.
A-Force
While participating in a roller derby in Miami, Dazzler was approached by Singularity, She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, Nico Minoru and Medusa to help them defeat Antimatter, since they required a powerful light source to defeat their foe. They attempted to negotiate with Antimatter but Dazzler was critically injured and died on the operating table. She woke up following the failed operation to realize it seemed like she was unable to die, and rejoined the fight against Antimatter in time to take Singularity into a pocket dimension to protect her from dying when Antimatter was destroyed. Singularity sensed something else had broken through into their universe; teleporting to Astoria, Oregon they found the dimension-hoppers were Dazzler Thor - an alternate version of Dazzler from Battleworld - and her opponent Countess. The Countess vanished following her defeat and A-Force took Dazzler Thor to get "ale" and Nico convinced Dazzler to talk to Dazzler Thor. Dazzler revealed to her alternate self that she had accidentally come into contact with Terrigen Mist and contracted M-Pox, which sterilizes and kills mutants. Dazzler woke up alongside the rest of A-Force and Dazzler Thor in a jail cell, without any powers. Nico appeared under the mind control and was made to send She-Hulk into a murderous rage, but they used this to escape. A-Force attacked the Countess; Dazzler Thor used a hologram to get close to the Countess, who attacked and injured her. Dazzler picked up Light Bringer to defend her but after the battle Dazzler Thor succumbed to the M-Pox virus and died in a flash of light. Dazzler revealed to the rest of A-Force she also had the lethal disease and left behind Light Bringer in respect for her fallen alternate self.
During the second superhero Civil War, Dazzler went with Captain Marvel to fight Thanos; She-Hulk was seriously injured in the fight. Shortly afterwards, Ulysses predicted that Nico would murder an innocent woman named Alice. Dazzler disagreed with Captain Marvel, who wanted to pre-emptively arrest her team-mate, and warned Nico when she arrived. Nico escaped, with Dazzler and Singularity opposing Captain Marvel and Medusa's decision to hunt her down. They followed the pair to Arizona, where Nico is hiding with Elsa Bloodstone and find it overrun by an infection turning people into a swarm of giant bugs. After a brief confrontation when the rest of A-Force find Nico they split into two teams: one to find Alice and the other to protect the civilians. While searching for Alice in an abandoned mine, Danvers, Minoru and Bloodstone are attacked by a giant bug. The bug incapacitates Danvers and Bloodstone before telepathically communicating to Minoru that she is Alice and has been inadvertently infecting the townspeople after her transformation. Alice tells Minoru that killing her is the only way to save the people. When Minoru refuses, an infected Bloodstone threatens to kill Danvers. Medusa, Singularity, and an infected Dazzler are overrun by bugs and regroup with the others just as Bloodstone infects Danvers. After Dazzler infects Medusa, Minoru casts a spell to transform Alice back into a human but it does not cure the rest of the populace. Alice explains that she must be killed and Minoru reluctantly casts a death spell on Alice which transforms the infected back into humans. Alice then remerges in her final form and tells A-Force that she is no longer a threat as she now has greater control of her powers.
Inhumans vs. X-Men
During the war between the X-Men and the Inhumans, Dazzler assisted Emma Frost in the beginning of her plot to defeat the Inhumans, disguising herself as an Inhuman performer shortly before ambushing Black Bolt in his own Quiet Room.
Residing on Krakoa
Later, she was one of the many mutants who have taken up residence on the newly established island nation of Krakoa.
Powers and abilities
Dazzler is a mutant with the ability to transduce sonic vibrations which reach her body into various types of light. This ability seems to operate over a great range of frequencies, including the audible spectrum, and a great variation of sound pressure levels regardless of the complexity, dissonance, or randomness of the sound. Sounds as different as a car crash and a symphonic passage both produce convertible incoming acoustic vibrations. Dazzler prefers utilizing the sound of music, particularly that which is rhythmically sustained. Not only is music more pleasant to her ears, but the steady beat of contemporary music provides a more constant source of sound to convert. Dazzler has been shown to create a "null space" of sound in a certain radius of her person, as a result of "pulling" the sound in her area to her person, to either protect a crowd of people or to supercharge her power reserves.
Left undirected, Dazzler's light will radiate from her body in all directions, producing regular flashes of white light. By conscious control over the light she produces, she can control its direction, frequency (color), amplitude (intensity), and duration. Her mutant ability can produce numerous other effects. She can create simple patterns out of rays of light or combinations of patterns which produce trance-like effects in her targets. She can create a pulse of light on the order of several thousand watts of power, which temporarily blinds people with its brilliance. She can create a cascade of sparkling lights and colors that severely upsets other people's equilibrium, or a pulsating strobe-light effect. She can also radiate light in gentle, soothing patterns to calm a person's mood. Dazzler can generate a coherent beam of light, approximating a laser beam, or generate a shield from laser energy that can deflect projectiles or energy beams. Dazzler has polarizing eyes and cannot be blinded or dazzled by light.
With effort, she can create holograms of human beings and other three-dimensional beings and objects. With similar effort she can also turn herself temporarily invisible and inaudible. She can also use light energy to generate some form of propulsion for flight or at least rapid ascent.
She generally directs lasers from a single finger when she requires precision. She most often uses her hands for directing her light effects, but she could also use other parts of her body. Since studying with the X-Men, she has become adept at directing her blinding strobe light blast from her eyes. The most powerful manifestation of her laser abilities is a concentrated stream of solid photons she usually fires from her index finger but can emit from her entire body. The beam is extremely powerful and as a consequence uses a great deal of her energy reserves. She has also demonstrated the ability to stretch the electromagnetic spectrum to produce devastating microwave energy. She has since learned how to produce these blasts without draining herself, while still providing them with considerable power.
Since the events of Dazzler: The Movie, Alison's body can store sound energy for future discharge as light. Thanks to Professor X, Dazzler's costume contains devices that enable her to store sonic energy more efficiently and to gauge and focus the light she generates with greater skill. She has also demonstrated on at least one occasion the ability to expel the stored sound into a devastating wave of sonic energy that destroyed her foe Silence. Dazzler is immune to the injurious effects of her light transducing abilities. Her ability to transduce sound also protects her from being deafened by loud sounds; In Dazzler vol. 2 #1, it was indicated that her ears are highly developed allowing her to detect sounds on frequencies that others cannot register. In X-Treme X-Men vol. 2 #4, she demonstrates the ability to use sound waves for echolocation before absorbing them for energy. Dazzler has also been shown to be immune to the powers of her half-sister Mortis, which ordinarily kills living subjects instantly. With considerable strain, Dazzler is capable of generating ultraviolet light in omnidirectional waves of such intensity that it will melt large metal structures.
Dazzler is a highly skilled athlete and hand-to-hand combatant thanks to her training with the X-Men and Gladiators, able to defeat over a dozen human combatants at once while purposely avoiding use of her mutant abilities. In addition, she is a talented singer, actress, and dancer. Dazzler is also a highly accomplished roller skater and can move at high speed; she is skilled enough to use her roller skates as weapons to strike an opponent's solar plexus in a flying kick. Dazzler occasionally wears a pair of roller skates which magnetically adhere to her boots.
Characters in the Marvel Universe who are counted among her fans are Juggernaut, teammate Colossus, Hulk, Northstar, Rhino, Molly Hayes, Kitty Pryde, Moon Knight, Captain Marvel, and Pixie.
Cultural impact and legacy
Critical reception
Jerry Stanford of CBR.com referred to Dazzler as a "compelling hero," writing, "Dazzler has a fan following strong enough to keep a strong demand for her in the X-Men family of titles. Although her creation is mired in a failed cross-media event with a record company, her legacy in comics is achieving greatness despite her crass origins. Although much of her early adventures are trite, she went on to fame as one of the X-Men." Mike Avila of Syfy described Dazzler as "one of Marvel’s most unique and even notorious characters," writing, "After Dazzler headlined her own comic book series, Claremont further developed her as a member of the X-Men. She’s no longer quite as prevalent as she used to be, but Dazzler still has a devoted fan following 40 years after her debut." Chris Condry of Looper found Dazzler to be "worthy of more film time and fandom," asserting, "If Alison Blaire, aka Dazzler, were a real person, we daresay that she would be the most iconic woman on Earth. Blaire's day job, or more accurately night job, is as a world-famous pop star... Essentially, Dazzler is what would happen if Lady Gaga spent her free time as John Wick." Bradley Prom of Screen Rant called Dazzler one of the characters who would be perfect for their own animated series.
Alex Welch of Inverse wrote, "She’s basically what it would look like if a pop star was an actual superhero." George Marston of Newsarama stated, "The fact is, Dazzler kicks ass. Her ability to turn sound into light has been expanded in creative and crafty ways time and time again, and her look has evolved from disco queen to aerobic video model, to an angst-inspired, darker look, and finally to her current style that combines elements of her previous looks with a modern twist." Marc Buxton| of Den of Geek asserted, "Alison Blaire may have started out as somewhat of a joke, a way for Marvel to take advantage of the disco craze of the 70s, but she hasn’t remained that way. Instead, Dazzler has become one of the most beloved X-Men characters ever." In November 2005, during an interview with Newsarama, writer Brian K. Vaughan asserted, "Ultimate Dazzler, on the other hand, may very well be Bendis’ single greatest contribution to the free world, so I use her way too much."
Accolades
Dazzler has been referenced in various internet Listicles.
In 2011, Comics Buyer's Guide ranked Dazzler 83rd in their "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.
In 2012, ComicsAlliance ranked Dazzler 38th in their "50 Comics and Characters That Resonate with LGBT Readers" list.
In 2015, Entertainment Weekly ranked Dazzler 52nd in their "Let's rank every X-Man ever" list.
In 2015, BuzzFeed ranked Dazzler 22nd in their "95 X-Men Members Ranked From Worst To Best" list.
In 2016, GameSpot included Dazzler in their "25 Most Criminally Underrated X-Men" list.
In 2017, Screen Rant ranked Dazzler 14th in their "Marvel: 17 Most Powerful Agents Of SHIELD" list.
In 2018, CBR.com ranked Dazzler 4th in their "20 Mutants That Look More Powerful Than They Really Are" list, 14th in their "Marvel's 15 Fiercest Female Mutants" list, and 15th in their "20 Most Powerful Mutants From The '80s" list.
In 2019, CBR.com ranked Dazzler 8th in "10 Most Powerful Members Of Excalibur" list and 8th in their "10 Superheroes Who Became Celebrities On Their World" list.
In 2021, Screen Rant included Dazzler in their "10 Most Powerful Members Of Marvel's A-Force" list.
In 2022, CBR.com ranked Dazzler 1st in their "10 Best Comic Book Musicians" list and 11th in their "X-Men: 15 Alpha-Level Mutants Who Are Deceptively Powerful" list.
Impact
Ira Madison III of MTV described Dazzler as a "gay icon in the annals of Marvel legends," asserting, "Dazzler remains a hugely popular character, particularly among queer Marvel fans. [...] Even though her stories were never tied to the disco scene at large, her journey of struggling for acceptance from a dismissive father and longing for the love of her missing mother was something that queer readers, who only years earlier could have been arrested for showing signs of affection toward a member of the same sex in public, connected with." Jerry Stanford of CBR.com asserted, "Almost since the beginning, the story of mutants in the Marvel Universe has been an allegory for the civil rights of marginalized groups... Dazzler strives for unity and her words mirror things said in the LGBTQ community. Different groups sometimes seek to alienate others as not worthy of inclusion, and the fight here makes a stand for a big tent movement." Andrew Wheeler of ComicsAlliance stated, "Ideas of self-ownership occur again and again in Claremont's stories and characters... Dazzler is mutantdom's first drag performer, using stage theatrics to present her true self to the world. On the stage she could embrace her mutant identity in a way that wouldn't feel safe on the street."
Brian Andersen of The Advocate said, "Dazzler isn’t queer. But being the premier superhero pop singer in the Marvel Universe means a strong argument can be made that she’s a gay icon." Hayden Manders of Nylon wrote, "All socio-political commentary aside, superhero narratives are filled with strong female characters, which we know makes up a huge percentage of queer icons. Characters like Wonder Woman, Storm, Dazzler, Captain Marvel, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are fierce and independent, capable of kicking just as much (if not more!) ass as their male counterparts. [...] That sort of representation is vital to the queer experience; it helps normalize what the world often sees as abnormal. Their superpowers only add another element of fearlessness to the community, because to be queer is to have superpowers."
Other versions
Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse reality, Dazzler appears as a member of the X-Men. She is a chain smoker, having no use for a singing voice in this timeline. She is also more skilled with her powers, being able to create hard-light constructs, as well as manipulate both light and sound energies. With this new power-set, Dazzler serves as a one-woman training facility, as well as a messenger via holographic transmissions. She was romantically involved with Exodus,
Dazzler was one of the characters involved in the original Age of Apocalypse to be brought back for the Age of Apocalypse 10th Anniversary miniseries. Against the battle with Mr. Sinister's Sinister Six, Dazzler was swallowed within Cloak's dark dimension, but is ultimately saved by a lightning bolt from Storm which forces Cloak to spit her back out.
Battle of the Atom
In X-Men: Battle Of The Atom, Dazzler becomes the first mutant President of the United States in the future. However, during her Inauguration speech, she is assassinated by fire from flying demons along with Jamie Madrox, and several audience members.
Earth X
In the Earth X timeline, Dazzler had her heart torn out by Mephisto though due to the "death" of Death, she lives on in constant agony.
Earth-721
A woman from Earth-721 was given the powers and appearance of Dazzler by Interlocking Technologies. She came to Earth-616 and impersonated the original Alison. She toured the Western States of the US in Dazzler's original costume. However, she was ultimately discovered, stripped of her powers and returned to Earth-721.
House of M
In the House of M reality, Dazzler is one of the most famous mutants on Earth. After having a successful singing career as a teenager, Dazzler continued her career as the world's primary media personality via her syndicated talk show. The House of M newsprint special featured a tabloid-esque blind article, indicating that Alison's signature lightshow was fading due to a rare blood disorder, which was causing her to lose her mutation. Storm used Alison's popular talk show to sound off on her disapproval of Magneto's handling of mutant affairs and Mister Sinister was seen watching the Alison show when Deadpool went to rescue an infant Cable.
Marvel Zombies
In the Marvel Zombies universe, Dazzler appears as one of the few uninfected heroes in the limited series Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness. There, she is almost eaten by an infected Winter Soldier until he is killed by Ash Williams. Ash is attracted to Dazzler, but she does not reciprocate his feelings. As a thanks for saving her, Dazzler agrees to help Ash find the Necronomicon book that might put an end to the zombies. The duo pair up with the Scarlet Witch to discover that the Necronomicon is being kept at Doctor Doom's fortress in Latveria. An infected Enchantress bites off her finger, infecting her, but Doom appears and vaporizes the two before Dazzler is turned.
Secret Wars
A version of Dazzler appeared during the 2015 "Secret Wars" storyline as part of the Thor Corps, a paramilitary organization charged with policing Battleworld and enforcing the will of God Emperor Doom. Dazzler Thor later appears in the mainstream Earth-616 universe, after coming through a multi-dimensional portal and joins A-Force in their fight against the Countess, a dragon who came through the same portal. After Countess is defeated, Dazzler Thor succumbs to the effects that this universe's Terrigen Mists had on her system and vanishes.
Ultimate Marvel
The Ultimate Marvel incarnation of Dazzler is introduced as a punk rock singer in Ultimate X-Men #42. She briefly joins Emma Frost's Academy of Tomorrow when promised a record deal, but joins the X-Men after they rescue her from a Sentinel attack. There she is called "Dazzler" after the name of her band.
She often shows a lack of enthusiasm for the X-Men and their endeavors, but after learning of a proposed public execution of a mutant, she convinces a group of teammates to go on a rescue mission. When the mission goes astray and Angel is captured, Dazzler takes initiative and leads the team in a recovery operation. This leads to the accidental release of Longshot.
Later, she and Angel go out on a presumed 'date' (really an effort to get themselves involved with the X-Men's latest mission) preventing the Academy of Tomorrow students from attacking the Triskelion. During the incident, power is lost and one of the inmates, Deathstrike, impales Dazzler through the chest. Ironically, Deathstrike is defeated by the very killer Dazzler has assisted before.
Dazzler stays in a coma for several weeks, visited many times by Nightcrawler having an unrequited crush on her. Unfortunately, many factors have combined to unhinge Nightcrawler and as soon as she is able to be moved, she is fooled into thinking they must escape. Initially trusting Nightcrawler, she cooperates until the rest of the X-Men rescue her. The others, understanding Nightcrawler is mentally ill, plan to rehabilitate. Dazzler does not accept this and quits the team in protest.
She has since been labeled as one of the "most important" mutants to the X-Men's cause by the future Bishop. Dazzler later joins Bishop's new team in Ultimate X-Men #82. When Bishop dies in Ultimate X-Men #90, Dazzler returned to the Xavier Institute to be with Angel and on Xavier's X-Men team once again. She is seen to be on Colossus's enhanced team, using the drug Banshee to boost her powers. The drug-enhanced team battles Xavier's main X-Men and eventually leave their drug-filled lives and return to the X-Mansion. When Magneto's worldwide devastation hits the X-Men, Dazzler is revealed by Jean Grey to have been killed in the tidal wave along with teammates Beast and Nightcrawler.
The Ultimate iteration of Dazzler does not convert sound into light in this continuity. Her powers are defined as "Matter Detonation"; by detonating small particles in the air, she is able to create brilliant photokinetic effects, controlling the color and intensity of the light created. Under the influence of the drug Banshee, Dazzler's powers are vastly increased, and she is able to create solid light constructs such as a sword, a tiger for her to ride into battle, and even a copy of Wolverine's claws, which she uses to fight Wolverine. Dazzler's true powers are shown when she detonates the matter making up Sentinel robots, completely destroying them with her sheer power.
X-Babies
A member of the X-Babies is based on Dazzler.
X-Men: The End
In X-Men: The End, a series about the X-Men's hypothetical future, Dazzler continued her career as a singer. An occasional "reserve" team member, she joined Storm and X-Men members Iceman, Bishop, Psylocke, and Sage for Xavier's "Plan B" team. Co-piloting a ship to the extraterrestrial Shi'ar homeworld, Dazzler used her powers to create a light show, calming the passions of the battling X-Men and Shi'ar Imperial Guard. Cassandra Nova then manifests, slaying the Imperial Guard and leaving the remaining X-Men as her sole adversaries. Dazzler attempted to subdue Cassandra along with Storm and Iceman. While she uses her ability to laser a hole through Cassandra's head, Storm strikes her with lightning, giving Iceman a chance to freeze her. Bishop then shatters her to prevent her from returning. However, Cassandra simply reforms and, as a form of retaliation, blasts a hole through Dazzler, strikes Storm with energy, and freezes Iceman. She successfully killed Storm and Dazzler, but Iceman survived the ordeal. Dazzler is believed to be among the slain X-Men that were invited to a plane of higher existence by the Phoenix.
What If
Dazzler was featured in two issues of What If:
In What If #33 (June 1982), Dazzler decides to stay Galactus' herald after she defeats Terrax. After many years of servitude during which she guides Galactus to feed on uninhabited worlds to spare the lives of beings on other planets, she is free to return to Earth. When she arrives, Dazzler discovers the Earth had become a barren wasteland. With nowhere else to go, she returns to Galactus who welcomes her return.
In a two-part What If? story (What if Cable had destroyed the X-Men? and What if Magneto took over the U.S.?) based on Uncanny X-Men #269, Dazzler is an agent of Magneto. She is ultimately killed by a Sentinel warhead.
In other media
Television
Dazzler appears in X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men, voiced by Alexandra Stoddart. This version is a member of the X-Men.
Dazzler appears in X-Men: The Animated Series, voiced by Catherine Disher.
Dazzler makes minor non-speaking appearances in Wolverine and the X-Men as an inhabitant of Genosha. Additionally, a possible future version appears in a flashback in the episode "Badlands" as one of several Genoshans who were killed by the Phoenix Force.
Hulu intended to air a Tigra & Dazzler animated series, written and executive produced by Erica Rivinoja and Chelsea Handler. Following their series, the pair would have teamed up with MODOK, Hit-Monkey and Howard the Duck in the animated special The Offenders. In December 2019, Rivinoja and the entire writing staff was fired due to creative differences. Handler was still attached to the project. In January 2020, it was announced that Tigra & Dazzler, along with the Howard the Duck series were canceled, making The Offenders unlikely.
Film
In the early 1980s, screenwriter Gary Goddard was commissioned to write a script for a film based on Dazzler, starring Bo Derek.
Alison Blaire / Dazzler makes a cameo appearance in Dark Phoenix, portrayed by Halston Sage. This version is a student of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters from the 1980s.
Video games
Dazzler appears as a playable character in X-Men.
Dazzler appears as a playable character in X-Men: Madness in Murderworld.
Dazzler appears as a playable character in X-Men II: The Fall of the Mutants.
Dazzler appears as a NPC in the PC version of X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse.
Dazzler makes a cameo appearance in Felicia's ending in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds.
Dazzler appears in Stern Pinball: Deadpool, voiced by Jennifer Lafleur.
Dazzler appears as a playable character in Marvel Puzzle Quest.
Dazzler appears as a playable character in Marvel Future Fight.
Dazzler appears in Marvel Snap.
Collected editions
Further reading
The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen: Awesome Female Characters from Comic Book History by Hope Nicholson, Quirk Books (2017)
References
External links
"Dissecting the Dazzler", Interview with DeFalco, Simonsen, and Stern
Dazzler Series Synopsis, William George Ferguson
UncannyXmen.net Spotlight on Dazzler
The Debut of the Dazzler
1981 comics debuts
Characters created by John Romita Jr.
Characters created by Louise Simonson
Characters created by Roger Stern
Characters created by Tom DeFalco
Comics about women
Comics characters introduced in 1980
Excalibur (comics)
Fictional actors
Fictional characters from New York (state)
Fictional characters who can manipulate light
Fictional characters who can manipulate sound
Fictional dancers
Fictional singers
Fictional models
Fictional musicians
Marvel Comics female superheroes
Marvel Comics film characters
Marvel Comics martial artists
Marvel Comics mutants
Marvel Comics titles
X-Men members |
422000 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema%20of%20Taiwan | Cinema of Taiwan | The cinema of Taiwan or Taiwan cinema ( or ) is deeply rooted in the island's unique history. Since its introduction to Taiwan in 1901 under Japanese rule, cinema has developed in Taiwan under ROC rule through several distinct stages, including taiyu pian (Taiwanese film) of the 1950s and 1960s, genre films of the 1960s and 1970s, including jiankang xieshi pian (healthy realist film), wuxia pian (sword-fighting film), aiqing wenyi pian (literary romantic film), zhengxuan pian (political propaganda film), and shehui xieshi pian (social realist film), Taiwan New Cinema of the 1980s, and the new wave of the 1990s and afterwards. Starting in the second decade of the new millennium, documentary films also became a representative part of Taiwan cinema.
Characteristics
Taiwanese directors
Taiwan cinema is internationally known for its representative directors, including King Hu (Chinese: 胡金銓), Hou Hsiao-hsien (Chinese: 侯孝賢), Edward Yang (Chinese 楊德昌), Tsai Ming-liang (Chinese 蔡明亮), Chang Tso Chi (Chinese: 張作驥), Chung Mong-Hong (Chinese: 鍾孟宏), and Midi Zhao (Chinese: 趙德胤).
Influence of the government
From the late Japanese colonial period to martial law in Taiwan, the development of Taiwanese film was dominated by the official camp studio development. The film produced during that stage was mainly news footage taken by the government-run studio (Taiwan film companies, the Central Motion Picture Corporation, China Film Studio) and political propaganda. Even today, the Taiwanese government maintains a "Film Fund" to financially support the film industry of the country. The fund is somewhat controversial yet is still well supported.
The Government Information Office (Chinese: 新聞局) was in charge of the film grant before 2012. Grants were divided into two groups of $5 million and $800 million. The production cost works out to be around a minimum of $120 million across 15 films. The application contains certain specifications to allow the correct amount of money to be allocated to a given film's production, for example the purpose of the $5 million grant is to encourage new directors directing a feature film for the first time.
The Ministry of Culture (Chinese: 文化部) is in charge of film policy and film industry since 2012.
Documentaries
After the documentary about Taiwan's traumatic earthquake in 1999 Life (生命, 2004) garnered then record-high 3,000NT at the box office, documentary films from Taiwan have also become more popular. The development of Taiwanese documentaries began after lifting of martial law in 1987 and the rise in popularity of small electronic camcorders, as well as the support and promotion provided by the Taiwan Council for Cultural Affairs. Documentaries also receive support from other government agencies and private corporations. A variety of film festivals and awards have been established to encourage the production of documentaries.
Taiwanese documentaries often deal with themes related to the filmmaker or their family, and explore serious social or political issues. These documentaries have started to gain international attention gradually, and many have gone on to win awards at international film festivals.
Early cinema, 1900–1945
The first film was introduced into Taiwan by Toyojirō Takamatsu (; see 高松豐次郎) in 1901. Taiwanese cinema was the first, and from 1900 to 1937, one of the most important of Japan's colonial film markets during the era of Japanese rule. In 1905, Takamatsu raised 10,000 Japanese yen in donations to the Japanese military from the proceeds of films screened in Taiwan about the Russo-Japanese War. By 1910, the Taiwan Colonial Government coordinated the efforts of independent filmmakers such as Takamatsu and others to establish a more organized approach to the production of film in the colony of Taiwan. Films played a vital role in enabling the larger colonial project of imperialization or cultural assimilation of Taiwanese subjects into the Japanese empire. The first silent film produced in Taiwan was An Introduction to the Actual Condition of Taiwan, a propaganda documentary that Takamatsu directed in 1907. Takamatsu noted that early films were produced mostly for Japanese audiences rather than for local Taiwanese. Hence, early films tended to be educational in nature, lauding Japan's modernizing presence on the island. Other films catered to Japanese audiences exotic desires for Taiwan as a place of adventure and danger such as Conquering Taiwan's Native Rebels (1910) and Heroes of the Taiwan Extermination Squad (1910).
Many conventions in Japanese films were adopted by the Taiwanese filmmakers. For example, the use of a benshi (narrator of silent films), which was a very important component of the film-going experience in Japan, was adopted and renamed piān-sū by the Taiwanese. This narrator was very different from its equivalent in the Western world. It rapidly evolved into a star system but one based on the Japanese system. In fact, people would go to see the very same film narrated by different benshi, to hear the other benshi's interpretation. A romance could become a comedy or a drama, depending on the narrator's style and skills. Lu, a famous actor and benshi in Taiwan wrote the best reference book on Taiwanese cinema. The first Taiwanese benshi master was a musician and composer named Wang Yung-feng, who had played on a regular basis for the orchestra at the Fang Nai Ting Theatre in Taipei. He was also the composer of the music for the Chinese film Tao hua qi xue ji (China, Peach girl, 1921) in Shanghai. Other famous Taiwanese benshi masters were Lu Su-Shang and Zhan Tian-Ma. Lu Su-shang, is not primarily remembered for his benshi performances, but mainly for writing the inestimable history of cinema and drama in Taiwan. The most famous benshi of all was possibly Zhan Tian-ma, whose story is told in a recent Taiwanese biographical film, March of Happiness (Taiwan, 1999, dir: Lin Sheng-shing). Benshi masters frequently were intellectuals: many spoke Japanese, often traveled to Japan and/or China, and some were poets who wrote their own librettos for each film. From 1910, films started to be distributed with a script, but the benshi often preferred to continue with their own interpretations. Notable films during this period include Song of Sadness (, 1919), The Eyes of Buddha (, 1922), and Whose Mistake? (, 1925).
Unlike Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Taiwan never became an important production market for Japan but rather was a vital exhibition market. Japanese-produced newsreels, shorts, educational, and feature films were widely circulated throughout Taiwan from the mid-1920s through 1945 and even after decolonization. As in Japan's other colonial film markets, the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 marked the beginning of an era of enhanced mobilization for the Japanese war effort throughout Asia and Taiwan's film markets were purged of American and Chinese films as a result. The Japanese strove to transform the locals into Japanese citizens, giving them Japanese names, a Japanese education, encouraging them to wear Japanese clothes and the men to cut their long hair. Films such as Japanese Police Supervise a Taiwanese Village (1935) illustrated how "proper" imperial subjects should dress and act as well as promoting their superior farming skills thanks to the Japanese overlords. Taiwanese directors would vividly revisit the legacy of this process of cultural annexation in such films as Hou Hsiao-hsien's City of Sadness (1989) and The Puppetmaster (1993), as well as Wu Nien-jen's A Borrowed Life (1994).
After 1949
Taiwanese cinema grew again after 1949, when the end of the Chinese civil war brought many filmmakers sympathetic to the Nationalists to Taiwan. Even then, the majority of films were still made in Taiwanese Hokkien and this continued for many years. In 1962, out of a total of 120 films produced, only seven were made in Mandarin; the rest were made in Taiwanese. However, the production of films in Taiwanese began to decline due to a variety of reasons, ranging from limited scope and waning interest for such films, to the Nationalist government's promotion of Standard Chinese in mass media and its deeming of Taiwanese as too "coarse". The last movie filmed entirely in Taiwanese was made in 1981.
The 1960s marked the beginning of Taiwan's rapid modernization. The government focused strongly on the economy, industrial development, and education, and in 1963 the Central Motion Picture Corporation (CMPC; see 中影公司) introduced the "Health Realism" melodrama. This film genre was proposed to help build traditional moral values, which were deemed important during the rapid transformation of the nation's socioeconomic structure. During this time, traditional kung fu films as well as romantic melodramas were also quite popular. The author Chiung Yao is especially famous for the movies made in this time period which were based on her widely read romantic novels.
Taiwanese cinema of this period is related to censorship in the Republic of China and propaganda in the Republic of China.
New Taiwanese Cinema, 1982–1990
By the early 1980s, the popularity of home video made film-watching a widespread activity for the Taiwanese. However, the Taiwanese film industry faced serious challenges, including the entry of Hong Kong films into the Taiwanese market. In order to compete with Hong Kong films, the CMPC began an initiative to support several fresh, young directors. In 1982, the film In Our Time (1982), which featured four young talented directors (Edward Yang, Te-Chen Tao, I-Chen Ko, and Yi Chang), began what would be known as the rejuvenation of Taiwanese cinema: the New Taiwanese Cinema.
In contrast to the melodrama or kung-fu action films of the earlier decades, New Taiwanese Cinema films are known for their realistic, down-to-earth, and sympathetic portrayals of Taiwanese life. These films sought to portray genuine stories of people living either in urban or rural Taiwan, and are often compared stylistically to the films of the Italian neorealism movement. This emphasis on realism was further enhanced by innovative narrative techniques. For example, the conventional narrative structure which builds the drama to a climax was abandoned and the story progressed at the pace as it would in real life.
Due to its honest portrayal of life, New Taiwanese Cinema films examined many of the important issues facing Taiwanese society at the time, such as urbanization, the struggle against poverty, and conflicts with political authority. For instance, Hou Hsiao-hsien's A City of Sadness portrays the tensions and the conflicts between the local Taiwanese and the newly arrived Chinese Nationalist government after the end of the Japanese occupation. Chen Kunhou's 1983 film Growing Up provides a nuanced perspective on the experience of a very young boy, from an ordinary family, getting into progressively more trouble. Edward Yang's Taipei Story (1985) and A Confucian Confusion (1994) talk about the confusion of traditional values and modern materialism among young urbanites in the 1980s and 1990s. His nearly four-hour film A Brighter Summer Day (1991), considered by many to be his masterpiece and the defining work of the New Taiwanese Cinema, deals with Taiwan's struggle in the 1960s to find its identity after the Kuomintang took control of Taiwan and brought numerous Chinese immigrants to the new republic, who expected to return to China once the Communists had been defeated. The New Taiwanese Cinema films therefore create a fascinating chronicle of Taiwan's socio-economic and political transformation in modern times.
Second New Wave, 1990–2010
The New Taiwanese Cinema gradually gave way to what could be informally called the Second New Wave, which are slightly less serious and more amenable to the populace, although just as committed to portraying the Taiwanese perspective.
For example, Tsai Ming-liang's Vive L'Amour, which won the Golden Lion at the 1994 Venice Film Festival, portrays the isolation, despair, and love of young adults living in the upscale apartments of Taipei. Stan Lai's The Peach Blossom Land (1992) is a tragi-comedy involving two groups of actors rehearsing different plays on the same stage; the masterful juxtaposition and the depth of the play's political and psychological meanings helped it win recognition at festivals in Tokyo and Berlin.
Ang Lee is perhaps the most well-known of the Second New Wave directors. His early films Pushing Hands (1991), The Wedding Banquet (1993), and Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) focus on the generational and cultural conflicts confronting many modern families. His Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) revived the wuxia genre successfully. Although not in the tradition of New Wave or Second New Wave, it is a commercial success which placed Asian films firmly in the international domain. The recent films Eternal Summer (2006), Prince of Tears (2009) and Winds of September (2009) have pushed the boundaries of Taiwanese film-making and broken the island's long-standing taboos about the depiction of controversial subject matter.
Taiwanese cinema faced difficult times competing with Hollywood blockbusters in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Box office for local films dwindled to less than 20 films annually and many Taiwanese viewers preferred watching Hong Kong or Hollywood productions, causing the country's film industry to be dominated by foreign repertoire. Taiwan's film industry went into decline in 1994 and collapsed in 1997 because of the growing popularity of movie piracy. The high box office takings of Cape No. 7 (2008) by Wei Te-sheng and Taiwanese films after 2008 proved that the local film industry had recovered from its slump. Cape No. 7 was so popular in Taiwan that on 1 November 2008 it became its highest grossing domestic film, second in the country's cinematic history to Titanic (1997). It raked in 530 million TWD (US$17.9 million) domestically, setting an all-time box office record for a Taiwanese film, and is currently the highest grossing Taiwanese domestic film of all time. It has won 15 awards to date, such as The Outstanding Taiwanese Film of the Year at the 45th Golden Horse Awards in 2008.
Revival, 2010–present
After the success of Cape No. 7, the Taiwanese movie industry began to recover from a slump that had lasted for about 10 years. Some notable films that led the revival of Taiwanese cinema are Monga (2010), Seven Days in Heaven (2010), Night Market Hero (2011), Love (2012). The head of the Government Information Office stated that "2011 will be a brand new year and a new start for Taiwanese films".
The director of Cape No. 7, Wei Te-sheng's follow-up movie, Seediq Bale (comprising a part 1 and part 2) was released in September 2011, with part 1 (The Sun Flag) being the 2nd highest grossing Taiwanese domestic film of all time and part 2 (The Rainbow Bridge) being the 7th highest grossing Taiwanese domestic film of all time.
It was shown in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival and it was selected as a contender for nomination for the 84th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film in 2011 and was one of nine films shortlisted to advance to the next round of voting for nomination.
Other notable films include: The Killer Who Never Kills (2011), which is based on a short story in the Killer series written by Giddens Ko. Additionally, the popular 2009 TV series Black & White resulted in two feature films entitled: Black & White Episode I: The Dawn of Assault (2012) (a prequel to the TV series) and Black & White: The Dawn of Justice (2014) (another prequel to the TV series but a sequel to the 2012 film). In 2012, Giddens Ko's romance You Are the Apple of My Eye (2012) earned about NTD 425 million, making it the 4th highest grossing domestic Taiwanese film of all time, followed by Fung Kai's Din Tao: Leader of the Parade (2012) which earned NTD 317 million, making it the 8th highest grossing domestic Taiwanese film of all time. In 2013, Chiu Li-kwan's film David Loman (2013) earned NTD 428 million, making it The 3rd highest grossing domestic Taiwanese film of all time.
In 2015, female director Yu Shan Chen (a.k.a. Frankie Chen) released a film entitled Our Times (2015), which was the highest-grossing domestic Taiwanese film of the year, grossing over NT$410 million ($17.1 million US dollars), thereby making it the 5th highest grossing domestic Taiwanese film of all time. The film also starred Vivian Sung from another box-office success, Café. Waiting. Love (2014), the 11th highest grossing domestic Taiwanese film of all time. In 2014, Umin Boya directed a baseball film entitled Kano (2014), which ended up grossing over NT$330 million, making it the 6th highest grossing domestic Taiwanese film of all time.
The 9th-15th highest grossing Taiwanese domestic films of all time are, in order: Zone Pro Site (2013) (#9 with NTD 305 million), Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (2007) (#10 with NTD 280 million), Café. Waiting. Love (2014) (#11 with NTD 260 million), Monga (2010) (#12 with NTD 258 million), The Wonderful Wedding (2015) (#13 with NTD 250 million), Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above (2013) (#14 with NTD 220 million), and Twa-Tiu-Tiann (2014) (#15 with NTD 210 million).
Taiwanese filmmakers have attempted to cater to the Mainland Chinese market, and any films released on the mainland must comply with censorship that often involves downplaying or removing any indicators that Taiwan is a separate country from China. Such films include Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Assassin (2015), Yu Shan Chen's Our Times (2015), Gidden Ko's You Are the Apple of My Eye (2012), and The Wonderful Wedding (2015). All of these focus on cross-cultural themes marketable on the mainland and other parts of Asia, while purposefully avoiding use of the Taiwanese dialect and common symbols of Taiwanese nationality, like the flag. This is even the case in The Wonderful Wedding, which relies on comedic misunderstandings between the families of a mainland Chinese groom and Taiwanese bride, but attributes them to cultural differences on the regional level not the national level, something that has been described as a 'political whitewash'. Despite this, the film was more successful in Taiwan due to the variety of Taiwanese dialect comedic puns on Mandarin Chinese words. Successful films that focus on Taiwan have therefore predominantly been independent, low-budget, and aimed at the local market, such as John Hsu's Detention, which received five awards including Best Director at the 56th Golden Horse Awards.
Profit Sharing
Teng Sue-feng used Cape No. 7 as an example to discuss how profit is shared in Taiwan. Teng estimated the revenue to be NTD 520 million, and the production cost to be NTD 50 million. After deducting costs, 60% of the profit goes to movie theaters, and 10% to the distributor. The director gets about NT$140 million.
Film censorship
The first censorship in China under the Beiyang government came in July 1923, when the "Film Censorship Committee of the Jiangsu Provincial Education Association" was established in Kiangsu. It became more persavive under the Nationalist government.
1949 to 1983
The ROC regained its footing in Taiwan, which was acquired from Japan in 1945 and the 1931 law still applies to the Fujian islands of Kinmen and Matsu. In 1955 (), 1956 (), and 1958 (), four more amendments to the law ensued without revising the main criteria. The law was renamed the Motion Picture Act () in November 1983, and expanded the censorship criteria to include the following:
Hurts national interests or racial pride
Violates national policy or government ordinance
Agitates others to commit crimes or disobey laws
Jeopardizes teenager or children's health both physically or psychologically
Disrupts public order or impedes good morality
Advocates ridiculous heresy or misleads public opinion
Defames persons of virtue from the past or distorts historical facts
Article 30 of the 1983 law lowered the age cutoff line from 12 to 6 to dictate whether the viewing should be restricted or not.
1983 to the present
KMT practiced martial law until July 1987. After lifting it, the Executive Yuan, or through its now dissolved Government Information Office (GIO), promulgated regulations to carry out the said revised law starting in 1987 () and 1988 (). The then regulations revised the motion picture rating system, classifying films into three categories (General Audience/Parental Guidance/Restricted) based on age. The categories were expanded into four (General Audience/Protected/Parental Guidance/Restricted) in 1994 ().
The film law rephrased the censorship requirement in June 2015. To control the rating system requirement from a legislative perspective, article 9 of the new Motion Picture Act (), promulgated by the Legislative Yuan, maintains that motion pictures and their advertisements shall not be screened if not granted a rating by the central competent authority which shall convene a rating commission to rate films. Members of the commission shall be representatives of government agencies, and scholars and experts having academic or practical experience in related fields. The commission's conclusions shall be made public and clear rationales for ratings given be listed. Article 10 maintains if motion pictures and their advertisements violate restrictions or prohibitions laid out in law, the central competent authority shall not grant a rating. The Ministry of Culture established by the Executive Yuan further specifies that not more than one third of the committee members can come from the Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development.
The rating system was expanded into five categories on October 16, 2015 per regulations () drawn up in accordance with the Motion Picture Act.
0+: General Audience ( or ) – Viewing is permitted for audiences of all ages.
6+: Protected ( or ) – Viewing is not permitted for children under 6; children between 6 and 11 shall be accompanied and given guidance by parents, teachers, seniors, or adult relatives or friends.
12+: Parental Guidance 12 ( or ) – Viewing is not permitted for children under 12.
15+: Parental Guidance 15 ( or ) – Viewing is not permitted for those under 15.
18+: Restricted ( or ) – Viewing is not permitted for those under 18.
Article 9 of the regulations specifically mentions the Restricted rating will be issued under the following scenario:
Where the sale or use of illegal drugs, robbery, kidnapping, killing, or other illegal activities are detailed in the plot;
where there is concern that such activity could be mimicked;
where terrorism, bloody events, violence, or perversion are particularly vivid and could still be acceptable to persons over age 18;
where sexual imagery or innuendo is portrayed vividly in animation, images, language, text, dialogue, or sound, but does not elicit feelings of shame or disgust in persons over the age of 18.
Article 235 of ROC's Criminal Code also penalizes the distribution, broadcasts, sale, publicly displays of obscene video record.
Notable directors, actors and actresses
Sylvia Chang
Chen Kuo-fu
Chang Chen
Chin Han
Charlie Chin Hsiang-lin
Jay Chou
Chu Ke-liang
Gwei Lun-mei
Hou Hsiao-hsien
Hsu Feng
King Hu
Sibelle Hu
Richie Jen
Takeshi Kaneshiro
Cynthia Khan
Ang Lee
Li Han-hsiang
Tom Lin Shu-yu
Ruby Lin
Brigitte Lin
Jimmy Lin
Joan Lin
Rene Liu
Sihung Lung
Shu Qi
Alec Su
Tsai Ming-liang
Wei Te-sheng
Jacklyn Wu
Nicky Wu
Wu Nien-jen
Jerry Yan
Yang Kuei-Mei
Edward Yang
Awards
Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards (GHA)
Taipei Film Festival and Awards
Golden Harvest Awards for Outstanding Short Films
South Taiwan Film Festival
See also
Chinese Culture and Movie Center
Cinema of the world
Culture of Taiwan
Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards (Taipei)
List of Taiwanese actresses
List of Taiwanese submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film
References
Bibliography
External links
Chinese Taipei film Archive
Chinacinema.fr A French site on Chinese/Taiwanese cinema
Database of Taiwan Cinema
Taiwanderful Taiwan Movie Guide - A community index of Taiwanese movies.
Taiwan Cinema
Taiwan Movies at GMOAT |
422001 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema%20of%20Hong%20Kong | Cinema of Hong Kong | The cinema of Hong Kong () is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China and the cinema of Taiwan. As a former British colony, Hong Kong had a greater degree of political and economic freedom than mainland China and Taiwan, and developed into a filmmaking hub for the Chinese-speaking world (including its worldwide diaspora).
For decades, Hong Kong was the third largest motion picture industry in the world following US cinema and Indian cinema and the second largest exporter. Despite an industry crisis starting in the mid-1990s and Hong Kong's transfer to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997, Hong Kong film has retained much of its distinctive identity and continues to play a prominent part on the world cinema stage. In the West, Hong Kong's vigorous pop cinema (especially Hong Kong action cinema) has long had a strong cult following, which is now arguably a part of the cultural mainstream, widely available and imitated.
Economically, the film industry together with the value added of cultural and creative industries represents 5 per cent of Hong Kong's economy.
The Hong Kong industry
Unlike many film industries, Hong Kong has enjoyed little or no direct government support, through either subsidies or import quotas. It is a thoroughly commercial cinema: highly corporate, concentrating on crowd-pleasing genres like comedy and action, and relying heavily on formulas, sequels and remakes.
Hong Kong film derives a number of elements from Hollywood, such as certain genre parameters, a "thrill-a-minute" philosophy and fast pacing and film editing. But the borrowings are filtered through elements from traditional Chinese drama and art, particularly a penchant for stylisation and a disregard for Western standards of realism. This, combined with a fast and loose approach to the filmmaking process, contributes to the energy and surreal imagination that foreign audiences note in Hong Kong cinema.
In 2010, the box office gross in Hong Kong was HK$1.339 billion and in 2011 it was HK$1.379 billion. There were 56 Hong Kong films and 220 foreign films released in 2011.
In 2017, the box office gross was HK$1.85 billion compared with HK$1.95 billion in 2016. 331 films were released in 2017, dropped from 348 the year before.
The star system
According to Paul McDonald , a star system emerged in Hollywood as talent scouts, coaches, and publicists were involved with finding performers and making them into stars. In the vertically integrated Hollywood film industry of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, these responsibilities were all undertaken by the studios themselves. The studios made the stars and, due to notoriously restrictive terms imposed by exclusive services contracts, the studios also owned the stars (McDonald, 2000). As is common in commercial cinema, the industry's heart is a highly developed star system. In earlier days, beloved performers from the Chinese opera stage often brought their audiences with them to the screen. For the past three or four decades, television has been a major launching pad for movie stardom, through acting courses and widely watched drama, comedy and variety series offered by the two major stations. Possibly even more important is the overlap with the Cantonese pop music industry. Many, if not most, movie stars have recording sidelines, and vice versa; this has been a key marketing strategy in an entertainment industry where American-style, multimedia advertising campaigns have until recently been little used (Bordwell, 2000). In the current commercially troubled climate, the casting of young Cantopop idols (such as Ekin Cheng and the Twins) to attract the all-important youth audience is endemic.
In the small and tightly knit industry, actors (as well as other personnel, such as directors) are kept very busy. During previous boom periods, the number of movies made by a successful figure in a single year could routinely reach double digits.
Budgets
Films are typically low-budget when compared with American films. A major release with a big star, aimed at "hit" status, will typically cost around US$5 million (Yang et al., 1997). A low-budget feature can go well below US$1 million. Occasional blockbuster projects by the very biggest stars (Jackie Chan or Stephen Chow, for example) or international co-productions ("crossovers") aimed at the global market, can go as high as US$20 million or more, but these are rare exceptions. Hong Kong productions can nevertheless achieve a level of gloss and lavishness greater than these numbers might suggest, given factors such as lower wages and value of the Hong Kong dollar.
Language and sound
Films in the Cantonese language have been made in Hong Kong since the beginning. In the 1950s, it also became a center of Mandarin language film making after the Communist takeover in mainland China and the entertainment industry shifted from Shanghai to Hong Kong. From the 1960s to mid-1970s, Mandarin film productions became dominant, especially those made by the Shaw Brothers studio in Hong Kong. There was also a short-lived period whereby Hokkien films were produced in Hong Kong, and there were also films made in the Teochew dialect. Cantonese films made a comeback in the 1970s, and since the 1980s, films have been made mostly in Cantonese.
For decades, films were typically shot silent, with dialogue and all other sound dubbed afterwards. In the hectic and low-budget industry, this method was faster and more cost-efficient than recording live sound, particularly when using performers from different dialect regions; it also helped facilitate dubbing into other languages for the vital export market (for example, Standard Mandarin for mainland China and Taiwan). Many busy stars would not even record their own dialogue, but would be dubbed by a lesser-known performer. Shooting without sound also contributed to an improvisatory filmmaking approach. Movies often went into production without finished scripts, with scenes and dialogue concocted on the set; especially low-budget productions on tight schedules might even have actors mouth silently or simply count numbers, with actual dialogue created only in the editing process.
A trend towards sync sound filming grew in the late 1990s and this method is now the norm, partly because of a widespread public association with higher quality cinema.
History
1909 to World War II
During its early history, Hong Kong's cinema played second fiddle to that of the mainland, particularly the city of Shanghai, which was then the movie capital of the Chinese-speaking world. Very little of this work is extant: one count finds only four films remaining out of over 500 produced in Hong Kong before World War II (Fonoroff, 1997). Detailed accounts of this period therefore have inherent limitations and uncertainties.
Pioneers from the stage
As in most of China, the development of early films was tightly bound to Chinese opera, for centuries the dominant form of dramatic entertainment. Opera scenes were the source for what are generally credited as the first movies made in Hong Kong, two 1909 short comedies entitled Stealing a Roasted Duck and Right a Wrong with Earthenware Dish. The director was stage actor and director Liang Shaobo. The producer was an American, Benjamin Brodsky (sometimes transliterated 'Polaski'), one of a number of Westerners who helped jumpstart Chinese film through their efforts to crack China's vast potential market.
Credit for the first Hong Kong feature film is usually given to Zhuangzi Tests His Wife (1913), which also took its story from the opera stage, was helmed by a stage director and featured Brodsky's involvement. Director Lai Man-Wai (Li Ming Wei or Li Minwei in Mandarin) was a theatrical colleague of Liang Shaobo's who would become known as the "Father of Hong Kong Cinema". In another borrowing from opera, Lai played the role of wife himself. His brother played the role of husband, and his wife a supporting role as a maid, making her the first Chinese woman to act in a Chinese film, a milestone delayed by longstanding taboos regarding female performers (Leyda, 1972). Zhuangzhi was the only film made by Chinese American Film, founded by Lai and Brodsky as the first movie studio in Hong Kong, and was never actually shown in the territory (Stokes and Hoover, 1999).
The following year, the outbreak of World War I put a large crimp in the development of cinema in Hong Kong, as Germany was the source of the colony's film stock (Yang, 2003). It was not until 1923 that Lai, his brother and their cousin joined with Liang Shaobo to form Hong Kong's first entirely Chinese-owned-and-operated production company, the China Sun Motion Picture Company. In 1924, they moved their operation to the Mainland after government red tape blocked their plans to build a studio. (Teo, 1997)
The advent of sound
With the popularity of talkies in the early 1930s, the problem of China's various spoken dialects had to be grappled with. Hong Kong was a major center for Cantonese, one of the most widely spoken, and political factors on the Mainland provided other opportunities. In 1932, the Shaw brothers, who formed the Tianyi Film Company, teamed up with Cantonese opera singer to make the first Cantonese talkie, , in Shanghai. This film proved to be very successful, and in 1934, they established a branch of the Tianyi Studio in Kowloon to make Cantonese films. The government of the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party wanted to enforce a "Mandarin-only" policy and was hostile to Cantonese filmmaking in China. It also banned the wildly popular wuxia genre of martial arts swordplay and fantasy, accusing it of promoting superstition and violent anarchy. Cantonese film and wuxia film remained popular despite government hostility, and the British colony of Hong Kong became a place where both of these trends could be freely served. Tianyi soon moved the entire film production operation from Shanghai to Hong Kong and reorganised Tianyi into Nanyang (南洋) Productions. The name 粵語長片 (Pinyin: Yuèyǔ cháng piàn, Jyutping: jyut6 jyu5 coeng4 pin3*2) soon became the standard name for black and white Cantonese movies.
Filmed Cantonese operas proved even more successful than wuxia and constituted the leading genre of the 1930s. Major studios that thrived in this period were Grandview, Universal, and Nanyang (which later became the Shaw Brothers Studio that would have an enduring influence on Chinese film). (Teo, 1997)
The war era
Another important factor in the 1930s, was the second Sino-Japanese War. "National defense" films—patriotic war stories about Chinese resisting the Japanese invasion—became one of Hong Kong's major genres; notable titles included Kwan Man Ching's Lifeline (1935), Chiu Shu Sun's Hand to Hand Combat (1937) and Situ Huimin's March of the Partisans (1938). The genre and the film industry were further boosted by emigre film artists and companies when Shanghai was taken by the Japanese in 1937.
This of course came to an end when Hong Kong itself fell to the Japanese in December 1941. But unlike on the Mainland, the occupiers were not able to put together a collaborationist film industry. They managed to complete just one propaganda movie, The Attack on Hong Kong (1942; a.k.a. The Day of England's Collapse) before the British returned in 1945 (Teo, 1997). A more important move by the Japanese may have been to melt down many of Hong Kong's pre-war films to extract their silver nitrate for military use (Fonoroff, 1997).
The 1940s–1960s
Postwar Hong Kong cinema, like postwar Hong Kong industries in general, was catalysed by the continuing influx of capital and talents from Mainland China. The Hong Kong population in 1940 was around 1 million and rose to around 3.9 million in 1967, the population is increased around 2.9 million in this period. This became a flood with the 1946 resumption of the Chinese Civil War (which had been on hold during the fight against Japan) and then the 1949 Communist victory. These events definitively shifted the center of Chinese-language cinema to Hong Kong. The colony also did big business exporting films to Southeast Asian countries (especially but not exclusively due to their large Chinese expatriate communities) and to Chinatowns in Western countries (Bordwell, 2000).
Competing languages
The postwar era also cemented the bifurcation of the industry into two parallel cinemas, one in Mandarin, the dominant dialect of the Mainland emigres, and one in Cantonese, the dialect of most Hong Kong natives. The distinction between the two languages is in sound (Kei, 1994). During the silent film age the written language was Chinese and was known to all, no matter the language spoken (Kei, 1994). Subtitles allow both markets access to films (Kei, 1994). Mandarin movies sometimes had much higher budgets and more lavish production. Reasons included their enormous export market; the expertise and capital of the Shanghai filmmakers. For decades to come, Cantonese films, though sometimes more numerous, were relegated to second-tier status (Leyda, 1972).
Most of the films reviewed by the Office for Film, Newspaper and Article Administration come with subtitles, although there's no law requiring them. According to Shu Kei (also known as Kenneth Ip), the reason for the inclusion of English subtitles must've been to target overseas audiences, while Chinese subtitles were added to reach those who could read Chinese, but could not understand Cantonese.
The books City on Fire: Hong Kong Cinema (1999) and "Yang, 2003" falsely claim that the British authorities passed a law in 1963 requiring the subtitling of all films in English, supposedly to enable a watch on political content. And that making a virtue of necessity, studios included Chinese subtitles as well, enabling easier access to their movies for speakers of other dialects. (Yang, 2003)
Subtitling facilitated the movies' popularity in the West.
Cantonese movies
During this period, Cantonese opera on film dominated. The top stars were the female duo of Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin (Yam–Pak for short). Yam specialised in male scholar roles to Pak's female leads. They made over fifty films together, The Purple Hairpin (1959) being one of the most enduringly popular (Teo, 1997).
Low-budget martial arts films were also popular. A series of roughly 100 kung fu movies starring Kwan Tak Hing as historical folk hero Wong Fei Hung were made, starting with The True Story of Wong Fei Hung (1949) and ending with Wong Fei Hung Bravely Crushing the Fire Formation (1970) (Logan, 1995). Fantasy wuxia (swordplay) serials with special effects drawn on the film by hand, such as The Six-Fingered Lord of the Lute (1965) starring teen idol Connie Chan Po-chu in the lead male role, were also popular (Chute and Lim, 2003, 3), as were contemporary melodramas of home and family life, including the dramatisation of sibling rivalries in Our Sister Hedy (1957) starring Julie Yeh Feng.
Mandarin movies and the Shaws/Cathay rivalry
In Mandarin production, Shaw Brothers and Motion Picture and General Investments Limited (MP&GI, later renamed Cathay) were the top studios by the 1960s, and bitter rivals. The Shaws gained the upper hand in 1964 after the death in a plane crash of MP&GI founder and head Loke Wan Tho. The renamed Cathay faltered, ceasing film production in 1970 (Yang, 2003).
A musical genre called Huángméidiào (黃梅調) was derived from Chinese opera; the Shaws' record-breaking hit The Love Eterne (1963) remains the classic of the genre. Historical costume epics often overlapped with the Huángméidiào, such as in The Kingdom and the Beauty (1959). (Both of the above examples were directed by Shaw's star director, Li Han Hsiang). Romantic melodramas such as Red Bloom in the Snow (1956), Love Without End (1961), The Blue and the Black (1964) and adaptations of novels by Chiung Yao were popular. So were Hollywood-style musicals, which were a particular speciality of MP&GI/Cathay in entries such as Mambo Girl (1957) and The Wild, Wild Rose (1960).
In 1960s, the Motion Picture and General Investments Limited produced a special set of romantic movies which was called Southern and Northern. The first one is The Greatest Civil Wall On Earth (1961), the second one is The Greatest Wedding On Earth (1962) and the third one is The Greatest Love Affair On Earth (1964). This set of movies were partly spoken in Cantonese and partly spoken in Mandarin. In this set of movies, they showed some differences between Northern and Southern China; besides the languages, the movies also showed some kind of culture, such as the wedding culture and the food culture. The main idea of this set of movies was a kind of cultural integration between North and South.
In the second half of the 1960s, the Shaws inaugurated a new generation of more intense, less fantastical wuxia films with glossier production values, acrobatic moves and stronger violence. The trend was inspired by the popularity of imported samurai movies from Japan (Chute and Lim, 2003, 8), as well as by the loss of movie audiences to television. This marked the crucial turn of the industry from a female-centric genre system to an action movie orientation (see also the Hong Kong action cinema article). Key trendsetters included Xu Zenghong's Temple of the Red Lotus (1965), King Hu's Come Drink with Me (1966) and Dragon Inn (1967, made in Taiwan; a.k.a. Dragon Gate Inn), and Chang Cheh's Tiger Boy (1966), The One-Armed Swordsman (1967) and Golden Swallow (1968).
Years of transformation (1970s)
Mandarin-dialect film in general and the Shaw Brothers studio in particular began the 1970s in apparent positions of unassailable strength. Cantonese cinema virtually vanished in the face of Mandarin studios and Cantonese television, which became available to the general population in 1967; in 1972 no films in the local dialect were made (Bordwell, 2000). The Shaws saw their longtime rival Cathay ceasing film production, leaving themselves the only megastudio. The martial arts subgenre of the kung fu movie exploded into popularity internationally, with the Shaws driving and dominating the wave. But changes were beginning that would greatly alter the industry by the end of the decade.
The Cantonese comeback
Paradoxically, television would soon contribute to the revival of Cantonese in a movement towards more down-to-earth movies about modern Hong Kong life and average people.
The first spark was the ensemble comedy The House of 72 Tenants, the only Cantonese film made in 1973, a resounding hit. It was based on a well-known play and produced by the Shaws as a showcase for performers from their pioneering television station TVB (Yang, 2003).
The return of Cantonese really took off with the comedies of former TVB stars the Hui Brothers (actor-director-screenwriter Michael Hui, actor-singer Sam Hui and actor Ricky Hui). The rationale behind the move to Cantonese was clear in the trailer for the brothers' Games Gamblers Play (1974): "Films by devoted young people with you in mind." This move back to the local audience for Hong Kong cinema paid off immediately. Games Gamblers Play initially made US$1.4 million at the Hong Kong box office, becoming the highest-grossing film up to that point. The Hui movies also broke ground by satirising the modern reality of an ascendant middle class, whose long work hours and dreams of material success were transforming the colony into a modern industrial and corporate giant (Teo, 1997). Cantonese comedy thrived and Cantonese production skyrocketed; Mandarin hung on into the early 1980s, but has been relatively rare onscreen since.
Golden Harvest and the rise of the independents
In 1970, former Shaw Brothers executives Raymond Chow and Leonard Ho left to form their own studio, Golden Harvest. The upstart's more flexible and less tightfisted approach to the business outmaneuvered the Shaws' old-style studio. Chow and Ho landed contracts with rising young performers who had fresh ideas for the industry, like Bruce Lee and the Hui Brothers, and allowed them greater creative latitude than was traditional. California-born, Bruce Lee only found minor roles in U.S. films and television at first, as foreign actors were often criticized and not widely accepted by the audience during the 1970s in North America. Bruce expressed that the true orientals were not shown, especially in Hollywood, and most audiences still viewed Asian people as stereotypes (e.g. with flat eyes, pigtails). Moreover, the directors usually got him to do something just to be exotic. When Golden Harvest's The Big Boss (a.k.a. The Fists of Fury, 1971) came into theatres, it jump-started Lee's career into stardom and made martial arts and kung fu a global trend.
In 1976, Shaw Brothers made a series of true crime films. The first, The Criminals, took in HK$838,067, ranking in at #33 in the Hong Kong box office for that year. Following its success, Shaw Brothers made The Criminals 2 - Homicides that same year, followed by three more films (The Criminals 3 - Arson, The Criminals 4 - Assault and The Criminals 5 - The Teenager's Nightmare) the following year. The first movie in The Criminals series included three true stories: The Human Torsos, The Stuntmen, and Valley of the Hanged; each story was filmed by a different director. Valley of the Hanged told the story of a triple murder in Hong Kong, as well as a story about an unfaithful wife humiliating her husband. The Shaw Brothers' films attracted audiences with bizarre true stories featuring erotic and violent scenes. Their films also portrayed the ordinary aspects of Hong Kongers' lives, such as playing mahjong, a popular form of gambling.
By the end of the 1970s, Golden Harvest was the top studio, signing with Jackie Chan, the kung fu comedy actor-filmmaker who would spend the next 20 years as Asia's biggest box office draw (Chan and Yang, 1998, pp. 164–165; Bordwell, 2000). Raymond Chow built upon Lee's success with The Big Boss (a.k.a. Fists of Fury, 1971), Fist of Fury (a.k.a. The Chinese Connection, 1972) and The Way of the Dragon (a.k.a. The Return of the Dragon, 1972), each of which broke Hong Kong box office records. Bruce Lee appeared with minor Hollywood actors in the larger budget Enter the Dragon (1973), a co production with Warner Bros. Lee's death under mysterious circumstances made him a cult hero. Lee played a key role in opening foreign markets to Hong Kong films. Lee's films, enjoyed throughout the Third World, were often taken as symbolising the rebellious pride of insurgent Asia.
Meanwhile, the explosions of Cantonese and kung fu and the success of Golden Harvest created more space for independent producers and production companies. The era of the studio juggernauts was past. The Shaws nevertheless continued film production until 1985 before turning entirely to television (Teo, 1997).
Other transformative trends
The rapidly growing permissiveness in film content that was general in much of the world affected Hong Kong film as well. A genre of softcore erotica known as fengyue became a local staple (the name is a contraction of a Chinese phrase implying seductive decadence). Such material did not suffer as much of a stigma in Hong Kong as in most Western countries; it was more or less part of the mainstream, sometimes featuring contributions from major directors such as Chor Yuen and Li Han Hsiang and often crossbreeding with other popular genres like martial arts, the costume film and especially comedy (Teo, 1997; Yang, 2003). Violence also grew more intense and graphic, particularly at the instigation of martial arts filmmakers.
Director Lung Kong blended these trends into the social-issue dramas which he had already made his speciality with late 1960s Cantonese classics like The Story of a Discharged Prisoner (1967) and Teddy Girls (1969). In the 1970s, he began directing in Mandarin and brought exploitation elements to serious films about subjects like prostitution (The Call Girls and Lina), the atomic bomb (Hiroshima 28) and the fragility of civilised society (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1970), which portrayed a plague-decimated, near-future Hong Kong) (Teo, 1997).
The brief career of Tang Shu Shuen, the territory's first noted woman director, produced two films, The Arch (1968) and China Behind (1974), that were trailblazers for a local, socially critical art cinema. They are also widely considered forerunners of the last major milestone of the decade, the so-called Hong Kong New Wave that would come from outside the traditional studio hierarchy and point to new possibilities for the industry (Bordwell, 2000).
1980s – early 1990s: the boom years
The 1980s and early 1990s, saw seeds planted in the 1970s come to full flower: the triumph of Cantonese, the birth of a new and modern cinema, superpower status in the East Asian market, and the turning of the West's attention to Hong Kong film.
A cinema of greater technical polish and more sophisticated visual style, including the first forays into up-to-date special effects technology, sprang up quickly. To this surface dazzle, the new cinema added an eclectic mixing and matching of genres, and a penchant for pushing the boundaries of sensationalistic content. Slapstick comedy, sex, the supernatural, and above all action (of both the martial arts and cops-and-criminals varieties) ruled, occasionally all in the same film.
Some of the iconic films during this period include The Killer (1989), by John Woo, which is archetypal of the heroic bloodshed genre.
The international market
During this period, the Hong Kong industry was one of the few in the world that thrived in the face of the increasing global dominance of Hollywood. Indeed, it came to exert a comparable dominance in its own region of the world. The regional audience had always been vital, but now more than ever Hong Kong product filled theatres and video shelves in places like Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea. Taiwan became at least as important a market to Hong Kong film as the local one; in the early 1990s the once-robust Taiwanese film industry came close to extinction under the onslaught of Hong Kong imports (Bordwell, 2000). They even found a foothold in Japan, with its own highly developed and well-funded cinema and strong taste for American movies; Jackie Chan and Leslie Cheung were one of the stars who became very popular there.
Almost accidentally, Hong Kong also reached further into the West, building upon the attention gained during the 1970s kung fu craze. Availability in Chinatown theatres and video shops allowed the movies to be discovered by Western film cultists attracted by their "exotic" qualities and excesses. An emergence into the wider popular culture gradually followed over the coming years.
Leaders of the boom
The trailblazer was production company Cinema City, founded in 1980 by comedians Karl Maka, Raymond Wong and Dean Shek. It specialised in contemporary comedy and action, slickly produced according to explicitly prescribed commercial formulas. The lavish, effects-filled spy spoof Aces Go Places (1982) and its numerous sequels epitomised the much-imitated "Cinema City style" (Yang, 2003).
Directors and producers Tsui Hark and Wong Jing can be singled out as definitive figures of this era. Tsui was a notorious Hong Kong New Wave tyro who symbolised that movement's absorption into the mainstream, becoming the industry's central trendsetter and technical experimenter (Yang et al., 1997, p. 75). The even more prolific Wong is, by most accounts, the most commercially successful and critically reviled Hong Kong filmmaker of the last two decades, with his relentless output of aggressively crowd-pleasing and cannily marketed pulp films.
Other hallmarks of this era included the gangster or "Triad" movie trend launched by director John Woo, producer and long-time actor Alan Tang and dominated by actor Chow Yun-fat; romantic melodramas and martial arts fantasies starring Brigitte Lin; the comedies of stars like Cherie Chung and Stephen Chow; traditional kung fu movies dominated by Jet Li; and contemporary, stunt-driven kung fu action epitomised by the work of Jackie Chan.
Category III films
The government's introduction of a film ratings system in 1988 had a certainly unintended effect on subsequent trends. The "Category III" (adults only) rating became an umbrella for the rapid growth of pornographic and generally outré films; however, while considered graphic by Chinese standards, these films would be more on par with movies rated "R" or "NC-17" in the United States, and not "XXX". By the height of the boom in the early 1990s, roughly half of the theatrical features produced were Category III-rated softcore erotica descended from the fengyue movies of the 1970s (Yang, 2003). A definitive example of a mainstream Category III hit was Michael Mak's Sex and Zen (1991), a period comedy inspired by The Carnal Prayer Mat, the seventeenth century classic of comic-erotic literature by Li Yu (Dannen and Long, 1997). Naked Killer (1992) also became an international cult classic.
The rating also covered a trend for grisly, taboo-tweaking exploitation and horror films, often supposedly based on true crime stories, such as Men Behind the Sun (1988), Dr. Lamb (1992), The Untold Story (1993) and Ebola Syndrome (1996). Films depicting Triad rituals would also receive a Category III rating, an example of this being Crime Story (1993) starring Jackie Chan.
Since the mid-1990s, the trend has withered with the shrinking of the general Hong Kong film market and the wider availability of pornography in home video formats (Bordwell, 2000). But in 2000s, three Category III movies: Election, its sequel, Election 2 (a.k.a. Triad Election), and Mad Detective, all directed by Johnnie To, still enjoyed surprising box office successes in Hong Kong.
Alternative cinema
In this landscape of pulp, there remained some ground for an alternative cinema or art cinema, due at least in part to the influence of the New Wave. Some New Wave filmmakers such as Ann Hui and Yim Ho continued to earn acclaim with personal and political films made at the edges of the mainstream.
The second half of the 1980s also saw the emergence of what is sometimes called a "Second Wave". These younger directors included names like Stanley Kwan, Clara Law and her partner Eddie Fong, Mabel Cheung, Lawrence Ah Mon and Wong Kar-wai. Like the New Wavers, they tended to be graduates of overseas film schools and local television apprenticeships, and to be interested in going beyond the usual, commercial subject matters and styles.
These artists began to earn Hong Kong unprecedented attention and respect in international critical circles and the global film festival circuit. In particular, Wong Kar-wai's works starring Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Maggie Cheung in the 1990s have made him an internationally acclaimed and award-winning filmmaker.
Mid-1990s – present: Post-boom
The industry in crisis
During the 1990s, the Hong Kong film industry underwent a drastic decline from which it has not recovered. Domestic ticket sales had already started to drop in the late 1980s, but the regional audience kept the industry booming into the early years of the next decade (Teo, 1997). But by the mid-1990s, it went into freefall. Revenues were cut in half. By the decade's end, the number of films produced in a typical year dropped from an early 1990s high of well over 200 to somewhere around 100 (a large part of this reduction was in the "Category III" softcore pornography area.) American blockbuster imports began to regularly top the box office for the first time in decades. Ironically, this was the same period during which Hong Kong cinema emerged into mainstream visibility in the U.S. and began exporting popular figures to Hollywood.
Numerous, converging factors have been blamed for the downturn:
The Asian financial crisis, which dried up traditional sources of film finance as well as regional audiences' leisure spending money.
Overproduction, attended by a drop in quality control and an exhaustion of overused formulas (Yang, 2003).
A costly early 1990s boom in building of modern multiplexes and an attendant rise in ticket prices (Teo, 1997).
An increasingly cosmopolitan, upwardly mobile Hong Kong middle class that often looks down upon local films as cheap and tawdry.
Rampant video piracy throughout East Asia.
A newly aggressive push by Hollywood studios into the Asian market.
The greater access to the Mainland that came with the July 1997 handover to China, was not as much of a boom as hoped, and presented its own problems, particularly with regard to censorship.
The industry had one of its darkest years in 2003. In addition to the continuing slump, a SARS virus outbreak kept many theatres virtually empty for a time and shut down film production for four months; only fifty-four movies were made (Li, 2004). The unrelated deaths of two of Hong Kong's famous singer/actors, Leslie Cheung, 46, and Anita Mui, 40, rounded out the bad news.
The Hong Kong Government in April 2003, introduced a Film Guarantee Fund as an incentive to local banks to become involved in the motion picture industry. The guarantee operates to secure a percentage of monies loaned by banks to film production companies. The Fund has received a mixed reception from industry participants, and less than enthusiastic reception from financial institutions who perceive investment in local films as high risk ventures with little collateral. Film guarantee legal documents commissioned by the Hong Kong Government in late April 2003 are based on Canadian documents, which have limited relevance to the local industry.
Recent trends
Efforts by local filmmakers to refinish their product have had mixed results overall. These include technically glossier visuals, including much digital imagery; greater use of Hollywood-style mass marketing techniques; and heavy reliance on casting teen-friendly Cantopop music stars. Successful genre cycles in the late 1990s and early 2000s have included: American-styled, high-tech action pictures such as Downtown Torpedoes (1997), Gen-X Cops and Purple Storm (both 1999), The Legend of Zu, Gen-Y Cops, The Avenging Fist (all three were released in 2001), the "Triad kids" subgenre launched by Young and Dangerous (1996-2000); yuppie-centric romantic comedies like The Truth About Jane and Sam (1999), Needing You... (2000), Love on a Diet (2001); and supernatural chillers like Horror Hotline: Big-Head Monster (2001) and The Eye (2002), often modelled on the Japanese horror films then making an international splash.
In the 2000s, there have been some bright spots. Milkyway Image, founded by filmmakers Johnnie To and Wai Ka-Fai in the mid-1990s, has had considerable critical and commercial success, especially with offbeat and character-driven crime films like The Mission (1999) and Running on Karma (2003). An even more successful example of the genre was the blockbuster Infernal Affairs trilogy (2002–03) of police thrillers co-directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak (the Oscar-winning movie The Departed, was based on this movie). Comedian Stephen Chow, the most consistently popular screen star of the 1990s, directed and starred in Shaolin Soccer (2001) and Kung Fu Hustle (2004); these used digital special effects to push his distinctive humor into new realms of the surreal and became the territory's two highest-grossing films to date, garnering numerous awards locally and internationally. Johnnie To's two Category III movies: Election and Election 2 also enjoyed Hong Kong box office successes. Election 2 has even been released in the US theatrically under the new title Triad Election; this movie received very positive reviews in the United States, with a more than 90% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. New LGBT films such as City Without Baseball (2008), Permanent Residence (2009) and Amphetamine (2009) followed the success of earlier 1990s films such as Bugis Street (a 1995 Hong Kong–Singapore co-production), and Hold You Tight (1998).
Still, some observers believe that, given the depressed state of the industry and the rapidly strengthening economic and political ties among Hong Kong, mainland China and Taiwan, the distinctive entity of Hong Kong cinema that emerged after World War II may have a limited lifespan. The lines between the mainland and Hong Kong industries are ever more blurred, especially now that China is producing increasing numbers of slick, mass-appeal popular films. Predictions are notoriously difficult in this rapidly changing part of the world, but the trend may be towards a more pan-Chinese cinema, as existed in the first half of the twentieth century.
Censorship
In June 2021, the Hong Kong Film Censorship Authority OFNAA introduced a new national security policy. This law passed in 27 October 2021. It gives the chief secretary the power to revoke a film's licence if it is found to "endorse, support, glorify, encourage and incite activities that might endanger national security". Under the new law, the maximum penalties for showing unapproved films are three years in jail and a fine of HK$1 million. Critics like professor Kenny Ng and filmmaker Kiwi Chow voice concerns of its political censorship, spurring fears the new law would dampen the film industry.
In June 2022, The Dancing Voice of Youth was censored, and in August 2022, Losing Side of a Longed Place was censored. In October 2022, the OFNAA recommended the screening of The Dark Knight be cancelled. In October 2022, the OFNAA also banned The Lucky Woman from being screened due to protest scenes that took place at Taiwan's Presidential Office Building.
In April 2023, Wake In Silence failed to get approval from the OFNAA, allegedly because the film showed a flag that said "100% freedom."
In June 2023, more films were censored by the OFNAA at a local Hong Kong film festival. In June 2023, the OFNAA said that the Film Censorship Ordinance, which stipulates that films must be pre-approved by the OFNAA before public release, did not apply to films produced by the government.
See also
Cinema of China
Asian cinema
Cinema of the world
Hong Kong action cinema
Hong Kong in films
Hong Kong Movie DataBase
Heroic bloodshed
Mo lei tau comedies
Emperor Entertainment Group
List of Hong Kong films
List of cinemas in Hong Kong
Chinese animation
Film awards
Hong Kong Film Awards
Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards
Festivals
Hong Kong International Film Festival
References
Citations
General sources
Bordwell, David. Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000. .
Chan, Jackie, with Jeff Yang. I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998. .
Cheuk, Pak Tong. Hong Kong New Wave Cinema (1978–2000). Bristol: Intellect, 2008. .
Chute, David, and Cheng-Sim Lim, eds. Heroic Grace: The Chinese Martial Arts Film. Los Angeles: UCLA Film and Television Archive, 2003. (Film series catalogue; no ISBN.)
Biographies of film makers, as well as reviews.
Fonoroff, Paul. Silver Light: A Pictorial History of Hong Kong Cinema, 1920–1970. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing, 1997. .
Leyda, Jay. Dianying/Electric Shadows: An Account of Films and the Film Audience in China. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1972.
Li Cheuk-to (September–October 2004). "The former colony's recent cinema continues to reflect its uneasy relationship with Mainland China and its uncertain future". Journal: Hong Kong. Film Comment: pp. 10, 12. .
Logan, Bey. Hong Kong Action Cinema. Woodstock, N.Y.: The Overlook Press, 1995. , .
McDonald, Paul. (2000). "The Star System: The Production of Hollywood Stardom in the Post-Studio Era". In The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, eds. Hoboken, New Jersey: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 167–181.
Stokes, Lisa Odham, and Michael Hoover. City on Fire: Hong Kong Cinema. London: Verso, 1999. , . Hong Kong cinema analysed from a Marxist perspective.
Teo, Stephen. Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions. London: British Film Institute, 1997. .
Yang, Jeff, and Dina Gan, Terry Hong and the Staff of A. magazine. Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. .
Yang, Jeff (2003). Once Upon a Time in China: A Guide to Hong Kong, Taiwanese, and Mainland Chinese Cinema. New York: Atria. .
Further reading
Hong Kong cinema
Baker, Rick, and Toby Russell; Lisa Baker (ed.). The Essential Guide to Deadly China Dolls. London: Eastern Heroes Publications, 1996. . Biographies of Hong Kong action cinema actresses.
Baker, Rick, and Toby Russell; Lisa Tilston (ed.). The Essential Guide to Hong Kong Movies. London: Eastern Heroes Publications, 1994. . Contains reviews, but is best for its Hong Kong Film Personalities Directory.
Baker, Rick, and Toby Russell; Lisa Tilston (ed.). The Essential Guide to the Best of Eastern Heroes. London: Eastern Heroes Publications, 1995. .
Brady, Terrence J. Alexander Fu Sheng: Biography of the Chinatown Kid. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2018. .
Charles, John. The Hong Kong Filmography 1977–1997: A Complete Reference to 1,100 Films Produced by British Hong Kong Studios. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2000. . Very comprehensive.
Cheung, Esther M. K., and Yaowei Zhu (eds.). Between Home and World: A Reader in Hong Kong Cinema. Xianggang du ben xi lie. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. .
Chu, Yingchi. Hong Kong Cinema: Coloniser, Motherland and Self. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. .
Eberhard, Wolfram. The Chinese silver screen: Hong Kong & Taiwanese motion pictures in the 1960s, Taipei: Orient Cultural Service, 1972.
Fitzgerald, Martin. Hong Kong's Heroic Bloodshed. North Pomfret, VT: Trafalgar Square, 2000. .
Fonoroff, Paul. At the Hong Kong Movies: 600 Reviews from 1988 Till the Handover. Hong Kong: Film Biweekly Publishing House, 1998; Odyssey Publications, 1999. , .
Fu, Poshek, and David Desser, eds. The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, July 2000. .
Glaessner, Verina. Kung Fu: Cinema of Vengeance. London: Lorimer; New York: Bounty Books, 1974. , .
Hammond, Stefan. Hollywood East: Hong Kong Movies and the People Who Make Them. Contemporary Books, 2000. .
Hammond, Stefan, and Mike Wilkins. Sex and Zen & A Bullet in the Head: The Essential Guide to Hong Kong's Mind-bending Films. New York: Fireside Books, 1996. , .
Jarvie, Ian C. Window on Hong Kong: A Sociological Study of the Hong Kong Film Industry and Its Audience, Hong Kong: Centre of Asian Studies, 1977.
Jarvie, Ian C. "The Social and Cultural Significance of the Decline of the Cantonese Movie", Journal of Asian Affairs (SUNY Buffalo), Vol. III, No. 2, Fall 1979, pp. 40–50.
Jarvie, Ian C. "Martial Arts Films", in Erik Barnouw, ed., International Encyclopaedia of Communications, 1989, vol. 2, pp. 472–475.
Kar, Law, and Frank Bren. Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2004. .
Li, H. C. Chinese Cinema: Five Bibliographies. Hong Kong: Studio 8, 2003.
Lo Che-ying (comp.). A Selective Collection of Hong Kong Movie Posters: 1950s–1990s. Hong Kong in Pictorials Series. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing (H.K.) Co., Ltd., 1992. . Bilingual:
O'Brien, Daniel. Spooky Encounters: A Gwailo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror. Manchester: Headpress, 2003. .
Pang, Laikwan, and Day Wong (eds.). Masculinities and Hong Kong Cinema. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005. , .
Stokes, Lisa Odham, Jean Lukitsh, Michael Hoover, and Tyler Stokes. Historical Dictionary of Hong Kong Cinema. Historical dictionaries of literature and the arts, no. 2. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2007. .
Stringer, Julian. "Problems with the Treatment of Hong Kong Cinema as Camp". Asian Cinema vol. 8, no. 2 (Winter 1996–97): 44–65. .
Stringer, Julian. Blazing Passions: Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema. London: Wallflower, 2008. , .
Tobias, Mel C. Flashbacks: Hong Kong Cinema After Bruce Lee. Hong Kong: Gulliver Books, 1979. .
Wong, Ain-ling. The Hong Kong-Guangdong Film Connection. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Film Archive, 2005. .
Wong, Ain-ling. The Shaw Screen: A Preliminary Study. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Film Archive, 2003. .
Wood, Miles. Cine East: Hong Kong Cinema Through the Looking Glass. Guildford, Surrey: FAB Press, 1998. . Interviews with Hong Kong film makers.
Yau, Esther C. M., ed. At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001. , .
Zhong, Baoxian. "Hollywood of the East" in the Making: The Cathay Organization Vs. the Shaw Organization in Post-War Hong Kong. [Hong Kong]: Centre for China Urban and Regional Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2004. .
Zhong, Baoxian. Moguls of the Chinese Cinema: The Story of the Shaw Brothers in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore, 1924–2002. Working paper series (David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies); no. 44. Hong Kong: David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, 2005.
Note that "[e]very year, since 1978, the HKIFF has published both a catalog of films released that year and a retrospective book—and sometimes, special interest publication or two in the form of books and pamphlets. In 1996, a 10th Anniversary special was issued, and from 1997 onward, there have been yearly 'Panorama' special interest books in addition to the annual catalogs, retrospective books, and occasional pamphlets. In 2003, the HKIFF started carrying publications of the Hong Kong Film Archive, as well."—Bibliography of Hong Kong International Film Festival Retrospective Books Related to Hong Kong Action Cinema
Works which include Hong Kong cinema
Access Asia Limited. Cinemas, Film Production & Distribution in China & Hong Kong: A Market Analysis. Shanghai: Access Asia Ltd, 2004. .
Berry, Chris (ed.). Perspectives on Chinese Cinema. London: British Film Institute, 1991. , .
Berry, Michael. Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2004. , .
Browne, Nick, et al. (eds.). New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. .
Eberhard, Wolfram. The Chinese Silver Screen; Hong Kong & Taiwanese Motion Pictures in the 1960s. Asian folklore and social life monographs, v. 23. [Taipei: Orient Cultural Service], 1972.
Fu, Poshek. Between Shanghai and Hong Kong: The Politics of Chinese Cinemas. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2003. , .
Hunt, Leon. Kung Fu Cult Masters: From Bruce Lee to Crouching Tiger. Columbia University Press, 2003. .
Julius, Marshall. Action!: The Action Movie A–Z. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; London: Batsford, 1996. , , .
Leung, Helen Hok-Sze. Undercurrents: Queer Culture and Postcolonial Hong Kong. Sexuality studies series. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008. .
Lu, Sheldon Hsiao-peng, ed. Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1997. .
Marchetti, Gina, and Tan See Kam (eds.). Hong Kong Film, Hollywood and the New Global Cinema: No Film Is an Island. London: Routledge, 2007. , .
Martin, Sylvia J. Haunted: An Ethnography of the Hollywood and Hong Kong Media Industries. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Meyers, Ric. Great Martial Arts Movies: From Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan and More. New York, NY: Citadel Press, 2001. .
Meyers, Richard, Amy Harlib, Bill and Karen Palmer. From Bruce Lee to the Ninjas: Martial Arts Movies. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1985 (reprinted 1991). , .
Mintz, Marilyn D. The Martial Arts Film. South Brunswick, N.J.: A.S. Barnes, 1978. .
Mintz, Marilyn D. The Martial Arts Films. Rutland, VT: C.E. Tuttle, 1983. .
Palmer, Bill, Karen Palmer, and Ric Meyers. The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts Movies. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1995. .
Read, Pete. The Film and Television Market in Hong Kong. [Ottawa]: Canadian Heritage, 2005. .
Server, Lee. Asian Pop Cinema: Bombay to Tokyo. Chronicle Books, 1999. .
Tasker, Yvonne. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema. London: Routledge, November 2003. , .
Thomas, Brian. Videohound's Dragon: Asian Action & Cult Flicks. Visible Ink Press, 2003. .
Tobias, Mel C. Memoirs of an Asian Moviegoer. Quarry Bay, Hong Kong: South China Morning Post Ltd., 1982. "The book is actually an updated, enlarged and revised edition of 'Flashbacks' which was first published in 1979. I have decided to change the book's title because it now has widened its scope in the world of cinema."—From the book's introduction.
Tombs, Pete. Mondo Macabro: Weird and Wonderful Cinema Around the World. London: Titan Books, 1997; New York, NY: Griffin Books, 1998. , .
Weisser, Thomas. Asian Cult Cinema. New York: Boulevard Books, 1997. . Updated and expanded version of both volumes of Asian Trash Cinema: The Book; reviews and filmographies.
Weisser, Thomas. Asian Trash Cinema: The Book. Houston: Asian Trash Cinema/European Trash Cinema Publications, 1994.
Weisser, Thomas. Asian Trash Cinema: The Book (Part 2). Miami, Florida: Vital Sounds Inc./Asian Trash Cinema Publications, 1995.
Weyn, Suzanne, and Ellen Steiber. From Chuck Norris to the Karate Kid: Martial Arts in the Movies. New York: Parachute Press, 1986. . Juvenile audience.
In other languages
French
Armanet, François, and Max Armanet. Ciné Kung Fu. France: Ramsay, 1988. .
Fonfrède, Julien. Cinéma de Hong-Kong. Les élémentaires – une encyclopédie vivante series. Montréal: L'Ile de la tortue, 1999. .
Glaessner, Verina. Kung fu: La Violence au Cinéma. Montreal: Presses Select, 1976. Translation of Kung Fu: Cinema of Vengeance.
Glaessner, Verina. Kung Fu: La Violence au Cinéma. Paris: Edit. Minoutstchine, 1975. . Translation of Kung Fu: Cinema of Vengeance.
Reynaud, Bérénice. Nouvelles Chines, nouveaux cinémas. Paris, France: éditions des Cahiers du Cinéma, 1999. .
Seveon, Julien. Category III, sexe, sang et politique à Hong Kong. Paris: Bazaar & Compagnie, 2009. .
German
Kuhn, Otto. Der Eastern Film. Ebersberg/Obb.: Edition 8½, 1983. , .
Morgan, Jasper P. Die Knochenbrecher mit der Todeskralle: Bruce Lee und der "Drunken Master" – Legenden des Eastern-Films. ("The Bone Crushers with the Death Claw: Bruce Lee and the Drunken Master – Legends of the Eastern Film".) Der Eastern-Film, Bd. 1. Hille: MPW, 2003. , .
Umard, Ralph. Film Ohne Grenzen: Das Neue Hongkong Kino. Lappersdorf, Germany: Kerschensteiner, 1996. .
Italian
Bedetti, Simone, and Massimo Mazzoni. La Hollywood di Hong Kong Dalle Origini a John Woo ("Hollywood of the East: the Cinema of Hong Kong from the Beginning to John Woo"). Bologna: PuntoZero, 1996. . Book + computer disk (3½ inch) filmography.
Esposito, Riccardo F. Il Cinema del Kung-fu: 1970–1975. Rome, Italy: Fanucci Editore, March 1989. .
Esposito, Riccardo F. Il Drago Feroce Attraversa le Acque ("The Fierce Dragon Swim Across the Waters"). Florence: Tarab Edizioni, 1998. A "little handbook" about (selected) kung-fu movies released in Italy.
Esposito, Riccardo, Max Dellamora and Massimo Monteleone. Fant'Asia: Il Cinema Fantastico dell'estremo Oriente ("The Fantastic Cinema of the Far East"). Italy: Grenade, 1994. .
Nazzaro, Giona A., and Andrea Tagliacozzo. Il Cinema di Hong Kong: Spade, Kung Fu, Pistole, Fantasmi ("The Cinema of Hong Kong: Swords, Kung Fu, Guns, Ghosts"). Recco (Genova): Le Mani, 1997. .
Parizzi, Roberta. Hong Kong: Il Futuro del Cinema Abita Qui. Parma: S. Sorbini, 1996. . Notes: At head of title: Comune di Parma, Assessorato Alla Cultura, Ufficio Cinema; Cineclub Black Maria.
Pezzotta, Alberto. Tutto il Cinema di Hong Kong: Stili, Caratteri, autori ("All the Cinema of Hong Kong: Styles, Characters, Authors"). Milan: Baldini & Castoldi, 1999. .
Spanish
Escajedo, Javier, Carles Vila, and Julio Ángel Escajedo. Honor, plomo y sangre: el cine de acción de Hong Kong. [S.l.]: Camaleón, 1997.
(Tortosa,) Domingo López. Made in Hong Kong: Las 1000 Películas que Desataron la Fiebre Amarilla. Valencia: Midons Editorial, S.L.: 1997. .
External links
HKMDB.com—The largest and most comprehensive database of Hong Kong cinema in English and Chinese
Hong Kong Cinema—Celebrating Hong Kong action cinema
Hong Kong Movie Posters—Comprehensive collection of movie posters
LoveHKFilm.com—Reviews the vast majority of the movies currently coming out of Hong Kong
LoveAsianFilm.com—Celebrating Asian Films
The Wonderful World of Hong Kong Action Cinema—includes an extensive bibliography on martial arts films.
Chinese Film, Chinese Media, Print Culture 1—another extensive bibliography on Chinese film.
Hong Kong Cinemagic is a database of films and people blended with an editorial content, in English and French.
Hong Kong's TV and Film Publication Database, a growing collection of full-text publications (currently 1,850+) published between 1946 and 1997. Developed by HKBU Library |
422017 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi%20Protected%20Access | Wi-Fi Protected Access | Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), and Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3) are the three security certification programs developed after 2000 by the Wi-Fi Alliance to secure wireless computer networks. The Alliance defined these in response to serious weaknesses researchers had found in the previous system, Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP).
WPA (sometimes referred to as the TKIP standard) became available in 2003. The Wi-Fi Alliance intended it as an intermediate measure in anticipation of the availability of the more secure and complex WPA2, which became available in 2004 and is a common shorthand for the full IEEE 802.11i (or IEEE 802.11i-2004) standard.
In January 2018, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced the release of WPA3, which has several security improvements over WPA2.
As of 2023, most computers that connect to a wireless network have support for using WPA, WPA2, or WPA3.
Versions
WPA
The Wi-Fi Alliance intended WPA as an intermediate measure to take the place of WEP pending the availability of the full IEEE 802.11i standard. WPA could be implemented through firmware upgrades on wireless network interface cards designed for WEP that began shipping as far back as 1999. However, since the changes required in the wireless access points (APs) were more extensive than those needed on the network cards, most pre-2003 APs could not be upgraded to support WPA.
The WPA protocol implements the Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP). WEP used a 64-bit or 128-bit encryption key that must be manually entered on wireless access points and devices and does not change. TKIP employs a per-packet key, meaning that it dynamically generates a new 128-bit key for each packet and thus prevents the types of attacks that compromised WEP.
WPA also includes a Message Integrity Check, which is designed to prevent an attacker from altering and resending data packets. This replaces the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) that was used by the WEP standard. CRC's main flaw was that it did not provide a sufficiently strong data integrity guarantee for the packets it handled. Well-tested message authentication codes existed to solve these problems, but they required too much computation to be used on old network cards. WPA uses a message integrity check algorithm called TKIP to verify the integrity of the packets. TKIP is much stronger than a CRC, but not as strong as the algorithm used in WPA2. Researchers have since discovered a flaw in WPA that relied on older weaknesses in WEP and the limitations of the message integrity code hash function, named Michael, to retrieve the keystream from short packets to use for re-injection and spoofing.
WPA2
Ratified in 2004, WPA2 replaced WPA. WPA2, which requires testing and certification by the Wi-Fi Alliance, implements the mandatory elements of IEEE 802.11i. In particular, it includes mandatory support for CCMP, an AES-based encryption mode. Certification began in September, 2004. From March 13, 2006, to June 30, 2020, WPA2 certification was mandatory for all new devices to bear the Wi-Fi trademark.
WPA3
In January 2018, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced WPA3 as a replacement to WPA2. Certification began in June 2018, and WPA3 support has been mandatory for devices which bear the "Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™" logo since July 2020.
The new standard uses an equivalent 192-bit cryptographic strength in WPA3-Enterprise mode (AES-256 in GCM mode with SHA-384 as HMAC), and still mandates the use of CCMP-128 (AES-128 in CCM mode) as the minimum encryption algorithm in WPA3-Personal mode.
The WPA3 standard also replaces the pre-shared key (PSK) exchange with Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) exchange, a method originally introduced with IEEE 802.11s, resulting in a more secure initial key exchange in personal mode and forward secrecy. The Wi-Fi Alliance also says that WPA3 will mitigate security issues posed by weak passwords and simplify the process of setting up devices with no display interface.
Protection of management frames as specified in the IEEE 802.11w amendment is also enforced by the WPA3 specifications.
Hardware support
WPA has been designed specifically to work with wireless hardware produced prior to the introduction of WPA protocol, which provides inadequate security through WEP. Some of these devices support WPA only after applying firmware upgrades, which are not available for some legacy devices.
Wi-Fi devices certified since 2006 support both the WPA and WPA2 security protocols. WPA3 is required since July 1, 2020.
WPA terminology
Different WPA versions and protection mechanisms can be distinguished based on the target end-user (such as wep, wpa, wpa2, wpa3) /(according to the method of authentication key distribution), and the encryption protocol used.
Target users (authentication key distribution)
WPA-Personal Also referred to as WPA-PSK (pre-shared key) mode, this is designed for home, small office and basic uses these networks and does not require an authentication server. Each wireless network device encrypts the network traffic by deriving its 128-bit encryption key from a 256-bit shared key. This key may be entered either as a string of 64 hexadecimal digits, or as a passphrase of 8 to 63 printable ASCII characters. This pass-phrase-to-PSK mapping is nevertheless not binding, as Annex J is informative in the latest 802.11 standard. If ASCII characters are used, the 256-bit key is calculated by applying the PBKDF2 key derivation function to the passphrase, using the SSID as the salt and 4096 iterations of HMAC-SHA1. WPA-Personal mode is available on all three WPA versions.
WPA-Enterprise Also referred to as WPA-802.1X mode, and sometimes just WPA (as opposed to WPA-PSK), this is designed for enterprise networks and requires a RADIUS authentication server. This requires a more complicated setup, but provides additional security (e.g. protection against dictionary attacks on short passwords). Various kinds of the Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) are used for authentication. WPA-Enterprise mode is available on all three WPA versions.
Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) This is an alternative authentication key distribution method intended to simplify and strengthen the process, but which, as widely implemented, creates a major security hole via WPS PIN recovery.
Encryption protocol
TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) The RC4 stream cipher is used with a 128-bit per-packet key, meaning that it dynamically generates a new key for each packet. This is used by WPA.
CCMP (CTR mode with CBC-MAC Protocol) The protocol used by WPA2, based on the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) cipher along with strong message authenticity and integrity checking is significantly stronger in protection for both privacy and integrity than the RC4-based TKIP that is used by WPA. Among informal names are AES and AES-CCMP. According to the 802.11n specification, this encryption protocol must be used to achieve fast 802.11n high bitrate schemes, though not all implementations enforce this. Otherwise, the data rate will not exceed 54 Mbit/s.
EAP extensions under WPA and WPA2 Enterprise
Originally, only EAP-TLS (Extensible Authentication Protocol - Transport Layer Security) was certified by the Wi-Fi alliance. In April 2010, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced the inclusion of additional EAP types to its WPA- and WPA2-Enterprise certification programs. This was to ensure that WPA-Enterprise certified products can interoperate with one another.
the certification program includes the following EAP types:
EAP-TLS (previously tested)
EAP-TTLS/MSCHAPv2 (April 2005)
PEAPv0/EAP-MSCHAPv2 (April 2005)
PEAPv1/EAP-GTC (April 2005)
PEAP-TLS
EAP-SIM (April 2005)
EAP-AKA (April 2009)
EAP-FAST (April 2009)
802.1X clients and servers developed by specific firms may support other EAP types. This certification is an attempt for popular EAP types to interoperate; their failure to do so is one of the major issues preventing rollout of 802.1X on heterogeneous networks.
Commercial 802.1X servers include Microsoft Network Policy Server and Juniper Networks Steelbelted RADIUS as well as Aradial Radius server. FreeRADIUS is an open source 802.1X server.
Security issues
Weak password
Pre-shared key WPA and WPA2 remain vulnerable to password cracking attacks if users rely on a weak password or passphrase. WPA passphrase hashes are seeded from the SSID name and its length; rainbow tables exist for the top 1,000 network SSIDs and a multitude of common passwords, requiring only a quick lookup to speed up cracking WPA-PSK.
Brute forcing of simple passwords can be attempted using the Aircrack Suite starting from the four-way authentication handshake exchanged during association or periodic re-authentication.
WPA3 replaces cryptographic protocols susceptible to off-line analysis with protocols that require interaction with the infrastructure for each guessed password, supposedly placing temporal limits on the number of guesses. However, design flaws in WPA3 enable attackers to plausibly launch brute-force attacks (see Dragonblood attack).
Lack of forward secrecy
WPA and WPA2 do not provide forward secrecy, meaning that once an adverse person discovers the pre-shared key, they can potentially decrypt all packets encrypted using that PSK transmitted in the future and even past, which could be passively and silently collected by the attacker. This also means an attacker can silently capture and decrypt others' packets if a WPA-protected access point is provided free of charge at a public place, because its password is usually shared to anyone in that place. In other words, WPA only protects from attackers who do not have access to the password. Because of that, it's safer to use Transport Layer Security (TLS) or similar on top of that for the transfer of any sensitive data. However starting from WPA3, this issue has been addressed.
WPA packet spoofing and decryption
In 2013, Mathy Vanhoef and Frank Piessens significantly improved upon the WPA-TKIP attacks of Erik Tews and Martin Beck. They demonstrated how to inject an arbitrary number of packets, with each packet containing at most 112 bytes of payload. This was demonstrated by implementing a port scanner, which can be executed against any client using WPA-TKIP. Additionally, they showed how to decrypt arbitrary packets sent to a client. They mentioned this can be used to hijack a TCP connection, allowing an attacker to inject malicious JavaScript when the victim visits a website.
In contrast, the Beck-Tews attack could only decrypt short packets with mostly known content, such as ARP messages, and only allowed injection of 3 to 7 packets of at most 28 bytes. The Beck-Tews attack also requires quality of service (as defined in 802.11e) to be enabled, while the Vanhoef-Piessens attack does not. Neither attack leads to recovery of the shared session key between the client and Access Point. The authors say using a short rekeying interval can prevent some attacks but not all, and strongly recommend switching from TKIP to AES-based CCMP.
Halvorsen and others show how to modify the Beck-Tews attack to allow injection of 3 to 7 packets having a size of at most 596 bytes. The downside is that their attack requires substantially more time to execute: approximately 18 minutes and 25 seconds. In other work Vanhoef and Piessens showed that, when WPA is used to encrypt broadcast packets, their original attack can also be executed. This is an important extension, as substantially more networks use WPA to protect broadcast packets, than to protect unicast packets. The execution time of this attack is on average around 7 minutes, compared to the 14 minutes of the original Vanhoef-Piessens and Beck-Tews attack.
The vulnerabilities of TKIP are significant because WPA-TKIP had been held before to be an extremely safe combination; indeed, WPA-TKIP is still a configuration option upon a wide variety of wireless routing devices provided by many hardware vendors. A survey in 2013 showed that 71% still allow usage of TKIP, and 19% exclusively support TKIP.
WPS PIN recovery
A more serious security flaw was revealed in December 2011 by Stefan Viehböck that affects wireless routers with the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) feature, regardless of which encryption method they use. Most recent models have this feature and enable it by default. Many consumer Wi-Fi device manufacturers had taken steps to eliminate the potential of weak passphrase choices by promoting alternative methods of automatically generating and distributing strong keys when users add a new wireless adapter or appliance to a network. These methods include pushing buttons on the devices or entering an 8-digit PIN.
The Wi-Fi Alliance standardized these methods as Wi-Fi Protected Setup; however, the PIN feature as widely implemented introduced a major new security flaw. The flaw allows a remote attacker to recover the WPS PIN and, with it, the router's WPA/WPA2 password in a few hours. Users have been urged to turn off the WPS feature, although this may not be possible on some router models. Also, the PIN is written on a label on most Wi-Fi routers with WPS, and cannot be changed if compromised.
WPA3 introduces a new alternative for the configuration of devices that lack sufficient user interface capabilities by allowing nearby devices to serve as an adequate UI for network provisioning purposes, thus mitigating the need for WPS.
MS-CHAPv2 and lack of AAA server CN validation
Several weaknesses have been found in MS-CHAPv2, some of which severely reduce the complexity of brute-force attacks, making them feasible with modern hardware. In 2012 the complexity of breaking MS-CHAPv2 was reduced to that of breaking a single DES key (work by Moxie Marlinspike and Marsh Ray). Moxie advised: "Enterprises who are depending on the mutual authentication properties of MS-CHAPv2 for connection to their WPA2 Radius servers should immediately start migrating to something else."
Tunneled EAP methods using TTLS or PEAP which encrypt the MSCHAPv2 exchange are widely deployed to protect against exploitation of this vulnerability. However, prevalent WPA2 client implementations during the early 2000s were prone to misconfiguration by end users, or in some cases (e.g. Android), lacked any user-accessible way to properly configure validation of AAA server certificate CNs. This extended the relevance of the original weakness in MSCHAPv2 within MiTM attack scenarios. Under stricter compliance tests for WPA2 announced alongside WPA3, certified client software will be required to conform to certain behaviors surrounding AAA certificate validation.
Hole196
Hole196 is a vulnerability in the WPA2 protocol that abuses the shared Group Temporal Key (GTK). It can be used to conduct man-in-the-middle and denial-of-service attacks. However, it assumes that the attacker is already authenticated against Access Point and thus in possession of the GTK.
Predictable Group Temporal Key (GTK)
In 2016 it was shown that the WPA and WPA2 standards contain an insecure expository random number generator (RNG). Researchers showed that, if vendors implement the proposed RNG, an attacker is able to predict the group key (GTK) that is supposed to be randomly generated by the access point (AP). Additionally, they showed that possession of the GTK enables the attacker to inject any traffic into the network, and allowed the attacker to decrypt unicast internet traffic transmitted over the wireless network. They demonstrated their attack against an Asus RT-AC51U router that uses the MediaTek out-of-tree drivers, which generate the GTK themselves, and showed the GTK can be recovered within two minutes or less. Similarly, they demonstrated the keys generated by Broadcom access daemons running on VxWorks 5 and later can be recovered in four minutes or less, which affects, for example, certain versions of Linksys WRT54G and certain Apple AirPort Extreme models. Vendors can defend against this attack by using a secure RNG. By doing so, Hostapd running on Linux kernels is not vulnerable against this attack and thus routers running typical OpenWrt or LEDE installations do not exhibit this issue.
KRACK attack
In October 2017, details of the KRACK (Key Reinstallation Attack) attack on WPA2 were published. The KRACK attack is believed to affect all variants of WPA and WPA2; however, the security implications vary between implementations, depending upon how individual developers interpreted a poorly specified part of the standard. Software patches can resolve the vulnerability but are not available for all devices.
Dragonblood attack
In April 2019, serious design flaws in WPA3 were found which allow attackers to perform downgrade attacks and side-channel attacks, enabling brute-forcing the passphrase, as well as launching denial-of-service attacks on Wi-Fi base stations.
In December 2020, a paper titled Dragonblood is Still Leaking: Practical Cache-based Side-Channel in the Wild was published, showing that while some implementations were patched, the main vulnerability (the hash-to-group function) was not, due to the need for backward compatibility.
References
External links
Official standards document:
Wi-Fi Alliance's Interoperability Certificate page
Weakness in Passphrase Choice in WPA Interface, by Robert Moskowitz. Retrieved March 2, 2004.
The Evolution of 802.11 Wireless Security, by Kevin Benton, April 18th 2010
Computer network security
Cryptographic protocols
IEEE 802.11 |
422023 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incentive | Incentive | In general, incentives are anything that persuade a person to alter their behavior in the desired manner. It is emphasized that incentives matter by the basic law of economists and the laws of behavior, which state that higher incentives amount to greater levels of effort and therefore higher levels of performance.
Divisions
An incentive is a powerful tool to influence certain desired behaviors or action often adopted by governments and businesses.
Incentives can be broadly broken down into two categories: intrinsic incentives and extrinsic incentives. Overall, both types of incentives can be powerful tools often employ to increase effort and higher performance according to the "law of behavior."
Incentives are most studied in the area of personnel economics where economic analysts, such as those who take part in human resources management practices, focus on how firms make employees more motivated, through pay and career concerns, compensation and performance evaluation, to motivate employees and best achieve the firms' desired performance outcomes.
Intrinsic and extrinsic incentive
An intrinsic incentive is when a person is motivated to act in a certain way for their own personal satisfaction without seeking any external reward, nor facing any external pressure to perform the task. For instance, a singer who enjoys singing may be intrinsically motivated to spend several hours a day to improve their performance without receiving any recognition or awards from others. Often, intrinsic incentives are useful in increasing one's empowerment, utility level, and autonomy and can reinforce employees’ work involvement and commitment.
Intrinsic incentives and extrinsic incentives are both important in driving people's behavior. Experts believe that intrinsic incentives are stronger motivators compared to extrinsic incentives as they increase employees’ work engagement and genuine enjoyment of work. However, people's intrinsic motivation tends to decrease when they are offered too many extrinsic rewards. In order to maintain the action, constant incentives have to be provided. This is known as the Overjustification Effect.
While both types of incentive are a fundamental concept in economics that play a crucial role in motivating behavior, the extent to which and how they influence individual may depend on varies factors. Factors to consider may include the type of activity being incentivized, the individual's personal values and goals, and the context in which the incentive is offered. A well-designed incentive system should take into account to avoid unintended consequences and ensure that they align with the desired outcomes.
There are some parties who oppose the benefits of using extrinsic incentives and believe that they cause more harm than good. These opponents believe that the constant use of extrinsic incentives can lead to the crowding out of intrinsic incentives, which are also valuable performance motivators. When people are constantly being incentivized by external pressures, they neglect their intrinsic motives which could consequently be detrimental to their work ethic. Employees can become too comfortable with consistently gaining some reward for acting in a manner which is consistent with the interests of the firm. As a result, employees begin to believe that they deserve to earn rewards for doing certain things, not for the benefit of the firm but rather for their own benefit, which leads to them shirking if no extrinsic incentive is offered in return for high effort.
Nonetheless, incentives (both intrinsic and extrinsic) can be beneficial in altering a person's behavior and can be effectively used and executed within many different areas of life including in the workforce, in education and within one's personal life.
Classification
Classified by David Callahan, the types of incentives can be further broken down into three broad classes according to the different ways in which they motivate agents to take a particular course of actions:
Monetary incentives
Monetary incentives are any form of financial good given to someone to incentivize their actions and align their incentives with those of the principal who provides the monetary incentive. This is a type of extrinsic incentive and is commonly seen in the workplace. The effect of monetary incentive can be broken down into two categories: the "standard direct price effect," and "indirect psychological effect". These two types of monetary effect often work in opposite direction and crowd out incentivised behaviour. However, several studies have suggested that it is possible to manage the crowding-out effects by utilising a principal-agent model that incorporates nonstandard assumptions. For instance, a monetary incentive may come in the forms of profit sharing, bonuses, stock options or even paid vacation time. As such, a well-chosen monetary incentive programs can produce positive motivation and influence the productivity and output of individuals and firms.
A common monetary incentive system used by firms is performance-based pay where incentives are paid based on employees' productivity or output over a particular period of time. Some methods are commission-based where the employee, for example a salesperson, receives a payment directly correlated to their output level. Firms also pay additional wages or rewards for employees who work overtime and for their additional work above firm expectations. Expectancy theory implies that, provided employees place sufficient value on the monetary incentive to justify their extra effort and perceive that greater effort will result in better performance, such incentives can motivate employees to maintain high levels of effort and discourage shirking. This in turn increases the individual productivity of workers and the overall productivity of the firm.
Other monetary incentives are less direct, such as awarding periodic, discretionary bonuses to top performers, offering the possibility of a promotion to a higher-paying position or profit sharing for team projects. Alternatively, firms can also incentivize their employees to perform by threatening to demote or terminate them for poor performance. When employees feel that their careers are in jeopardy, they are more likely to increase their efforts.
Monetary incentives do affect the effort and average performance of employees but are likely dependent on the scope of the job and the task variables. For routine jobs such as clerical and administration jobs that are mundane, the presence of monetary incentives will encourage employees to demonstrate consistent effort of diligence when the intrinsic incentive has been exhausted. On the other hand, if the task assigned is too challenging, monetary incentives make little to no difference in increasing an employee's contribution to work.
The effect of monetary incentives can depend on the framing of the rewards. For example, in cadaveric organ donation, funeral aids are perceived to be more ethical (particularly in showing gratitude and honoring the deceased donor) and potentially increase donation willingness than direct cash payments of the same monetary value.
Non-monetary incentives
Non-monetary incentives can act as an impactful reward system to employees with superior performance that is independent to predetermined targets. They refer to the use of rewards or benefits that are not directly related to money or financial compensation to motivate individuals to perform specific actions or achieve desired outcomes
The use of non-monetary incentives is based on the recognition that individuals are motivated by a range of factors beyond financial rewards and acts as a reinforcement to encourage work engagement and productivity. Some examples of these incentives include extra paid holidays, recognition, praise, opportunity for personal or professional growth, gifts, family benefits or even work-based perks such as more interesting projects or work.
Individual may be motivated by a sense of purpose, a desire for personal fulfillment or growth, a need for social recognition or status, or other non-financial factors. By providing these types of incentives tend to boost employees' job satisfaction as they feel more appreciated for their efforts and lower turnover rates. Compared to monetary incentives, studies have shown that employees find non-monetary incentives more memorable as they are separated from normal pay and hence are more distinguishable. In addition, non-monetary incentives are known to promote long-term commitment and loyalty among employees Effective use of non-monetary incentives can positively influence employees’ perception of the company's image as well as increase the morale of firms. Compared to monetary incentives, non-monetary incentives hold a stronger and longer-lasting influence on employees’ motivation as it results in a higher utility level. Employees with higher job satisfaction and morale were found to have better overall performance, contribution and hence higher productivity. Another advantage of non-monetary incentives that it allows a positive work culture that emphasizes cooperation, teamwork, and social responsibility.
However, non-monetary incentives also have some limitations and undesirable consequence. For instance, it can be less effective in motivating individuals who are primarily motivated by monetary incentives such as financial rewards. This may be especially true for individuals who are in low-paying jobs or who face significant financial stress or insecurity. Another concern is that non-monetary incentives may be more difficult to quantify and evaluate than monetary incentives. This may create several challenges for a firm or organisation to design and implement effective incentive programs that are aligned with their goals and objectives.
Overall, both monetary and non-monetary incentives are important tools to influence individual and organizational behavior. While monetary incentives may be more effective for some individuals or in some contexts, non-monetary incentives can be equally effective in promoting long-term commitment, fostering a positive work culture, and promoting social responsibility. Ultimately, the most effective incentive programs will likely incorporate a combination of monetary and non-monetary incentives to create a positive and comprehensive approach to motivation and performance.
Incentives in the economic context
The economic analysis of incentives focuses on the systems that determine the incentives needed for an agent to achieve a desired outcome dictated by the principal. Incentives can help companies link employees' rewards to their productivity. When a firm wants their employees to produce a certain amount of output, it must be prepared to offer a compensation scheme such as a monetary bonus to persuade employees to reach the target output. Compensation must achieve two goals. The first is to reduce employee turnover and retain the highest performing and most productive employees. Compensating employees can help attract workers to work harder and retain their ability. The second is to improve productivity. Compensation can not only stimulate the ability of workers to produce output, but also improve the enthusiasm of employees to work, thus promoting business development. A rise in pay variance across the firm reflects an increased demand for highly productive workers, and therefore compensation has begun shifting towards pay-for-performance. This helps employees recognize the direct relationship between their work output and their reward.
While incentive has become one of a powerful tool to motivate and influence certain behaviour or action, they can also have unintended consequences. Recent research indicated how extensive and intrinsic can come into conflict with other motivation. For example, a poorly designed incentive system can potentially lead to unintended behaviours and actions as such, individuals or companies gaming the system to earn rewards without actually achieving the desired outcomes. This is known as the "principal-agent problem," where the incentives of the principal (e.g., the government or a company) do not align with the incentives of the agent (e.g., individuals or employees). This incentive conflicts can lead to adverse selection and moral hazard. A moral hazard refers to a situation in which a particular party engage in a risky behaviour because it fails to bear the full costs of that risk. On the other hand, an adverse selection occur when there is a asymmetric information between different parties. As such, adverse selection often creates an incentive for plans to inefficiently distorts benefits. As incentive can bring conflicts between parties involve, effective management plan is required to resolve incentive conflicts.
Misaligned incentives
A misaligned incentive refers to a situation where the goals of different parties involved in a particular situation such as a firm or system are not aligned and may even conflict with each other. Misaligned incentives can potentially arise in many other contexts, such as in government policies, healthcare, education, and environmental regulations. Principals within a firm want their agents to work for the principals' best interests, but agents often have different goals than the principals. Due to this problem of misaligned incentives, firms must design compensation plans to induce workers to act in the firm's best interest and generate a level of output that maximizes the firm's profits. The problem of asymmetric information means that the principal does not know exactly how to motivate its agents to act in the firm's best interests. Consequently, compensation plans are difficult for firms to design. The principal-agent theory is used as the guiding framework when aligning incentives with the employee's effort to obtain the efficient level of output for the firm. For example, a manager may want a certain level of output from an employee but does not know the capabilities of the employee in the presence of imperfect monitoring, and to achieve the best outcome, an optimal incentive scheme must be designed to motivate the worker to increase their productivity. Research shows that if a principal offers a high incentive, the agent will also recompense with a higher effort.
However, in this relationship, an informal advantage usually exists among agents over the principal. A moral hazard could be present where principals are unable to know for sure if agents are giving their all on a delegated task, and an adverse selection could exist as principals usually have insufficient knowledge on the agents’ capabilities and face difficulties in selecting the agent best suited for a task. In instances where principals have contradicting goals with the agents, agents would have an incentive to shirk and to leak information to competing principals. Self-interested agents may also want to maximize their own interest by lying or deliberately hiding information from the principal to decrease their workload.
CEO incentives
The board of directors in a company plays an important role in creating incentives for CEOs so that their best interest aligns with that of the shareholders. CEOs can be given incentives in many forms, including salary, bonuses, shares, and stock options to reward spectacular performance while penalties can be imposed for unsatisfactory performance. To ensure that the CEOs are appropriately incentivized, CEOs can be made the substantial owners of the company's stock by the board of directors. CEOs that own a portion of the company's stock will have an incentive to work towards the common best interest of themselves and the company shareholders. Threat to dismiss the CEOs for unsatisfactory performance can also act as an incentive to reinforce the performance of the CEOs, which can in turn maximize the company's value. The possibility of dismissal will increase CEOs’ accountability for their own actions considering that the possible dismissal would likely lead to a poor reputation for themselves. As a result, a potential increase in work engagement and performance can be seen.
Apart from monetary incentives, non-monetary incentives also play a part in increasing the work performance of CEOs. Non-monetary incentives can be introduced in the form of benefits such as power, public acknowledgement, prestige, and title. However, some argue that non-monetary incentives are less impactful.
Tournament theory
Tournament theory describes a framework of compensation based on an individual's position within a firm's hierarchy. The theory demonstrates that individuals are not promoted on the basis of their absolute performance and output, but instead based on their performance relative to other employees in the same position within the organization. Ceteris paribus, the larger the difference in compensation between one position to the next, the greater the incentive to exert more effort in order to achieve a promotion. However, that incentive is diminished as the size of the firm (and therefore the potential candidates for promotion) increases.
Firms must address the risk that a relative compensation scheme could incentivize uncooperative behavior amongst co-workers. Accordingly, firms encounter a trade-off between incentivizing workers to increase their efforts by increasing pay variance between the promoted and the unpromoted and, on the other hand, minimizing disharmony amongst co-workers by maintaining some level of pay compression.
Self-selection effects of incentives
Employees know more about their own abilities, competitiveness and risk attitudes than potential employers. Due to this asymmetric information, firms design incentives not only to enhance employees’ motivation to act in the interests of the firm and maximize their output, but also to influence the type and quality of workers that they attract. This is known as the self-selection or sorting effect of incentives. For example, empirical studies have shown that firms which implement pay-for-performance rather than fixed wage compensation schemes tend to attract more productive workers who are less risk averse. Greater risk aversion reduces workers' willingness to work for variable as opposed to fixed pay. Accordingly, firms may use incentives as a method of filtering out low productivity workers or workers who lack the personal characteristics that those firms are searching for.
Team-based incentives
Production is increasingly organized around teams in many large firms. Teamwork may enhance company productivity for firms that encounter multidimensional, complex problems. A firm may be able to solve a complex task which requires a high level of various different skills by assigning it to expert workers with complementary skills. Due to constantly advancing technologies, seldom does an individual employee have an absolute advantage across all skills that are required to solve the complicated problems that firms face, hence team collaboration is crucial and beneficial to ensure the success of a team.
Individualized incentives are said to be dysfunctional in an interdependent working environment where individual performance is difficult to observe and so firms may opt for team-based incentives instead. Team-based incentive refers to the incentive system that rewards employees based on performance of the team. Team-based incentives are described as more beneficial to companies than individual-based incentives. By paying a straight piece rate to individual employees, they would have little to no motivation to help each other as the incentives they receive are irrespective of the result of others. On the other hand, paying team incentives based on team output can promote cohesiveness, trust, cooperation, and support within a team. Researchers found a positive relationship between team-based incentive and employees’ work efficacy, stability, and salary as well as company output.
Research shows that employees prefer individual-based incentives over team-based incentives due to a few reasons. Firstly, they believe that team-based incentives are prone to unfairness. Employees with more contributions may be discouraged from seeing employees that contributed less receiving the same level of incentive. Moreover, as a team expands and the effect of team incentives weakens, employees struggle to establish a clear link between effort given and incentives received. It is also inevitable that team incentives could induce the free-rider problem because an employee's motivation to maximize their individual output could be diminished. Managers may need to offer a team incentive that is strong enough to ensure that each worker's individual payoff from exerting the level of effort that allows the company to maximize its profits is greater than their individual payoff from free riding on the efforts of other team members.
Using Game theory to illustrate this, firms need to implement a team-based incentive that results in the value of ‘Y’ in Game 1 being greater than 100 and enforce a punishment for free-riding that makes the value of ‘X’ less than 40. This would ensure that both team members’ dominant strategy in Game 1 is to work hard and the Nash equilibrium is (Work Hard, Work Hard).
In contrast, some studies have shown that peer pressure and employees’ intrinsic incentive to perform well in a team environment may mitigate the free-rider problem associated with team-based incentives. Such case studies demonstrate that team incentives increase firm productivity in settings that involve complex, interdependent production where peer pressure and intrinsic incentives outweigh selfish preferences. Peer rating system can also be introduced for team members to rate each other's contribution to a task. Research findings show that imposing a penalty on free riders is useful in decreasing the tendency of free riding.
Potential issues associated with the use of incentives in firms
Ratchet effect
Incentives are arguably beneficial in increasing productivity, however, they can also have an adverse effect on the firm. This is evident through the ratchet effect. A firm may use its observation of an employee's output level when they are first employed as a guide to set performance standard and objectives for the future. Knowing this, an employee may deliberately reduce their output level when first employed or hide their ability to produce at a higher output with the intent of exploiting being rewarded in the future when they strategically increase their output level. Best performances of employees can be limited from it. Thus, the ratchet effect can significantly diminish production levels of a firm and planned economies.
Crowding-out effect
Additionally, in the 1970s psychologists began exploring the relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation whilst economists were simultaneously studying the "crowding-out" effects of monetary incentives. This came as a result of Richard Titmuss' 1970 publication, "The Gift Relationship", which explained how the constant use of extrinsic incentives can result in conflict with intrinsic motivators and lead to the desired behavior being "crowded out". In his publication, Titmuss argued that the use of monetary incentives was disrupting social norms around the idea of voluntary contribution and would ultimately have a crowding-out effect. He acknowledged that if the incentives are large enough, they are more likely to offset crowding-out effects (at least in the short run while the incentives are being offered). However, Titmuss noted that making the incentives too large could also have an adverse effect due to the possibility of negative inferences being drawn from the size of the incentives. Crowding-out effects can also occur when temporary incentives are removed in the long run. In the workplace, the complete removal of extrinsic incentives can result in employee effort levels being lower than they were when the incentives were offered, thereby hindering motivation and performance.
Stock options
Incentives are not always effective at aligning employees' incentives with those of the firm. For example, some corporate policies popular during the 1990s aimed to encourage productivity have led to failures as a result of unintended consequences. Moreover, providing stock options was intended to boost CEO productivity through offering a remunerative incentive to align the CEOs' interests with those of the shareholders to improve company performance. However, CEOs were found to either make good decisions which resulted in a reward of a long-term price increase of the stock, or were found to have fabricated the accounting information to give the illusion of economic success and to retain their incentive-based pay. Furthermore, it has been found to be extremely costly for firms to incentivize CEOs with stock options. Nevertheless, firms are forced to pay substantial amounts of money to ensure that CEOs act in the best interest of the firms.
Conflicts generated by pay variance
Incentives can have a bipolar effect on the company.
On the one hand, the company's incentives to employees may create a pay gap. For example, low-paid employees may reduce their production or contribution to the company. Low-paid employees and high-paid employees may not be able to communicate and cooperate effectively, causing low-paid employees to gradually lose their enthusiasm for work. Firms should provide a fair amount of incentives for both low-paid and other employees, incentives for low-paid workers can be breaks rather than monetary incentives. Motivating employees with financial rewards may make a difference. That's because if the company is profitable in the first year, it may have plenty of bonuses to hand out to employees. However, if the company makes less money in the second year than it did in the first year, the company may not be able to give employees the same bonuses as in the first year even though they put in the same effort. This also reduces employees' motivation to work. Therefore, incentives may be counterproductive. Firm can provide other types of incentives rather than monetary incentives, such as promotion or vacation breaks for high-performing employees.
Incentives in the context of voluntary contributions
When it comes to volunteering activities, monetary incentives can bring negative effects. According to the Self-perception theory, humans constantly seek explanations for their behavior. When individuals are involved in volunteering activities, they most likely perceive themselves as prosocial and altruistic, and attach a symbolic price to the act of volunteering. When a monetary reward is attached to an otherwise prosocial activity such as volunteering, people may perceive that their originally altruistic actions are now linked to extrinsic incentives, causing their self-image benefit and prosocial motivation to decrease. A crowding-out effect leads to a decrease in individuals’ desire to volunteer and people eventually stop contributing due to the rewards attached. For example, if monetary incentives are offered for voluntary blood donation, it will have a negative effect on the number of people donating blood.
Incentives in education
Extrinsic incentives offered to unmotivated students can potentially have positive short-run effects on education. However, the use of extrinsic incentives in education has been opposed on the basis that they are morally corrupt and have the potential to crowd out intrinsic incentives for educational effort. Furthermore, there is scarce empirical evidence to support the success of monetary incentives awarded for educational outputs such as academic achievement as opposed to educational inputs such as attendance and enrolment.
The dynamic effects of incentives are evident in the context of education. Studies have demonstrated that the impact of monetary incentives is dependent on previous academic performance and individual ability. Monetary incentives tend to improve the academic results of high-ability students but have an adverse effect on the performance of students with lower aptitude.
Conclusion
Ultimately, there is always potential for conflicts to arise, both in the short and in the long run, during the application of incentives in different areas, as incentives that seek to change behaviors can crowd-out intrinsic motivators. A growing pool of evidence suggests that economists must broaden their focus when exploring the effects of incentives as the effect they have is largely dependent on how they are designed and specifically how they interact with intrinsic and social motivators in the short run and the long run.
See also
Climate finance
Climate Investment Funds
Bounty (reward)
Eco-investing
Environmental Quality Incentives Program
Externality
Incentive-centered design
Incentive payments
Incentive program
Incentive trust
Incentivization
Investment incentive
Long-term incentive plan
Loyalty marketing
Loyalty program
Motivation
Motivational salience
Motivations of open source programmers
Motivations for online participation
Performance-related pay
Perverse incentive
Positive-incentive value
Profit motive
Research and Development Tax Incentive
Reward system
Social Impact Incentives
Steering tax
Tax incentive
Travel incentive
Wicked problem
References
Personal finance
Microeconomics
Motivation
Macroeconomics |
422038 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigo | Vigo | Vigo ( , , , ) is a city and municipality in the province of Pontevedra, within the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain. Located in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, it sits on the southern shore of an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean, the Ria de Vigo, the southernmost of the Rías Baixas.
The municipality, with an area of and a population of 292,374 in 2022 including rural parishes, is the most populous municipality in Galicia. The area of the municipality includes the Cíes Islands, part of the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park.
Vigo is one of the region's primary economic agents, owing to the French Stellantis Vigo Plant and to its port. Close to the Portugal–Spain border, Vigo is part of the Galicia–North Portugal Euroregion. The European Fisheries Control Agency is headquartered in Vigo.
History
In the Early Middle Ages, the small village of Vigo was part of the territory of Galician-speaking neighbouring towns, particularly Tui, and suffered several Viking attacks. However, its number of inhabitants was so small that, historically, it was not considered a real villa until around the 15th century, when the earliest records began.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the city was attacked several times. In 1585 and 1589, during an unsuccessful attack by the English counter-Armada, Francis Drake raided the city and temporarily occupied it, burning many buildings. Several decades later a Turkish fleet tried to attack the city. As a result, the city's walls were built in 1656 in the reign of Philip IV of Spain. They are still partially preserved.
At this time, and in spite of the attacks, Vigo developed its earliest commerce and was given several privileges by the kings of Spain.
In 1702, the Battle of Vigo Bay occurred, and in 1719, because a Spanish fleet which departed from Vigo attempted to invade Scotland in support of the Jacobites, the city was occupied for ten days by a British force.
In 1808, the French Army annexed Spain to the Napoleonic Empire, although Vigo remained unconquered until January, 1809. Vigo was also the first city of Europe to be freed from French rule, in what is annually celebrated on March 28 as the Reconquista (reconquest from the French in the context of the Peninsular War). In 1833, the city of Pontevedra was designated the provincial capital of the province of Pontevedra, within which lies Vigo.
Vigo grew very rapidly in the 20th century, thanks to the fact that the Spanish government granted it a free trade zone in 1947 to encourage international trade and economic development in southern Galicia.
Toponym
Vigo's urban area is built on both a hill-fort (Castro) and a Roman settlement. It is generally accepted that the name Vigo is derived from the Latin word vicus spacorum, meaning "small village".
The standard pronunciation of Vigo in both Galician and Spanish is .
Vigo has been given the nickname cidade olívica (city of olives). It is said that, after the conflict between Isabel de Castilla and Juana la Beltraneja - where Galician nobility fought for the latter - the victor ordered all of Galicia's olive trees to be cut down, as they symbolized peace. The tree in Vigo however, could not be uprooted as it was planted in sacred ground. The tree is represented in the city seal, and a descendant of it is still alive in Vigo's city centre.
Geography
Location
To the northeast, Vigo borders the municipality of Redondela; to the east, Mos; to the south, O Porriño and Gondomar; and to the southwest, Nigrán. On the other side of the bay are the municipalities of Cangas and Moaña.
Climate
Vigo has a transitional climate between the oceanic climate "Cfb" and the warm-summer Mediterranean climate "Csb" according to the Köppen climate classification. Although Vigo is the rainiest city in Galicia, with its noticeable drying trend in the summer, Vigo's climate is more similar to the variant of the oceanic climate commonly seen in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The average annual temperature in Vigo is . Compared to many other Galician towns, Vigo and Pontevedra experience warmer summer temperatures than A Coruña or Santiago de Compostela and milder winters than inland areas. This is due to its sheltered location, surrounded by mountains and the Illas Cíes out in the bay towards the sea. The all-time record high for the city is set on August 7, 2016. Vigo is known for its extreme rainfall in winter. December 1978 saw fall at the weather station in a single month. During that month on 7th December, fell on a single day. Normal values for 1981-2010 was falling on just 129.2 days indicating heavy rain to be common. The airport where values are taken is located further inland at a considerably higher elevation () than the city itself located on the coastline in the Ria de Vigo estuary, which is likely warmer year-round.
Demographics
The municipality of Vigo had 293,642 inhabitants in 2018 (198,537 in the city) with an extended metropolitan population of 478,508, in the southern part of the province of Pontevedra making it Spain's 14th-largest metropolitan area.
In 2020 - according to the data provided by the INE on 1 January 2020 - it had a population of 482,858 inhabitants in total, of which 296,692 lived in the municipality of Vigo, which represented 61.44% of the total population of the metropolitan area.In 2019, 15,319 foreigners lived in the city, 5.2% of the total population. The main nationalities are Portuguese (12%), Venezuelans (9.2%), Brazilians (9%), Romanians (7.5%), Colombians (6.5%), Senegalese (4%) and Chinese people (3%).
By language, according to 2013 data, 7.68% of the population spoke exclusively in Galician, and 51.39% in Spanish; 11.38% spoke in Galician more often than Spanish, and 29.55% more often in Spanish than Galician. This made Vigo the least Galician-speaking city in Galicia.
The creation of Vigo Metropolitan Area was approved in 2016 and, in addition to Vigo, it originally accounted for the following 13 municipalities: Baiona, Cangas, Fornelos de Montes, Gondomar, Moaña, Mos, Nigrán, Pazos de Borbén, O Porriño, Redondela, Salceda de Caselas, Salvaterra de Miño and Soutomaior. It has been however suspended since its creation. The European Union's Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy assigns Vigo a wider functional urban area (FUA), with 21 municipalities and a population of 541,000 inhabitants.
Government and administration
Vigo is a municipality, the basic level of local government in Spain. The Ayuntamiento (concello in Galician) is the body charged with the municipal government and administration. The Plenary of the concello is formed by 27 elected municipal councillors, who in turn invest the mayor.
The last municipal election took place on 26 May 2019, leading to a plenary formed by 20 councillors from the Socialists' Party of Galicia–PSOE, 4 from the People's Party, 2 from the Marea de Vigo and 1 from the Galician Nationalist Bloc. The current mayor is Abel Caballero (Spanish Socialist Workers Party), who has won four mandates in a row since becoming mayor in 2007.
Parishes
Vigo is administratively divided into 23 parroquias ("parishes").
Alcabre: Ameixeira, Barreiro, Carregal, Castañal, Cristo, Forte, Gándara, Igrexa, Pardaíña, Roade, Sobreira, Viñagrande
Beade: Babio, Balde, Carballo do Pazo, Coutada, Gándara, Porto, A Pena, Quintián, O Seixo, A Venda, Sáa
Bembrive: Baruxans, Carballal, Chans, Xestoso, Mosteiro, Outeiro, San Cibrán, Segade, Areeiro, Eifonso, Mouteira, Recaré, Xesteira
Bouzas
Cabral: Becerreira, Carballal, Sello, Figueiras
Candeán: Igrexa, Candeán de Arriba, Rabadeira, Fonte Oscura
Castrelos: Alvite, Castreliños, Costa, Chantada, Espedrigada o Pereiró, A Pousa, Falcoa, Macal, Pazó, Portoloureiro, Viloura
Coia
Comesaña: Casas, Cocheiros, Comesaña, Eidos, Igrexa, Muíños, Pazo, Pedra Branca, Pedreira, Pereiras, Ponte, Romeu, Rodeira, Sanin, Tombo, Viña da Veiga
Coruxo: Roteas, Río, Molans, Cean, Fontela, Breadouro, Silveira, Combro, Calzada, Cotarelo, Romeu, Verdeal, Melcas, Taberna, Burdes, Abade, Igrexa, Quintas, Carballal, Rozo, Coto de Arriba, Coto de Abaixo, Carrasqueira, Muiños, Gándara, Longra, Luz, Bouzas, Tarrío, Gato, San Lourenzo, Torre de Abaixo, Torre de Arriba, Laxes, Viño, Pedreira, Parrocha, Fragoselo, Tintureira
Freixeiro: Mantelas, A Salgueira, Riobó
Lavadores: Arriero, A Bagunda, Barreiro, Cambeses, A Ceboleira, O Couto, Gandariña, Gandarón, Naia, Pardavila, Riomaio, San Paio de Abaixo, San Paio, Igrexa
Matamá: Balsa, Balvis, Barxa, Beirán, Campos, Carapuxa, Carneiras, Dehesa, Castro, Igrexa, Lagarella, Moo, Outeiro, Parada, Pazos, Pereiro, Revolta, Rivas, Ribelas, Roupeiro, San Amaro, Vilar
Navia: Devesa, Gándara, Goberna, Pereiras, Quintela, Redondo, Samil, Tomada, Torre, Xuncal
Oia: Bouzo, Cabo Estai, Canido Praia, Carretera Cortada, Cerqueiro, Cruceiro, Curras, Eiras, Estea, Esteriz, Estomada, Figueiras, Gontade, Grades, Hermida, Igrexa, Loureiro, Estación, Lantexa, Lavandeira, Liñares, A Maris, Matoca, Mide, Oia, Outeiro, Poza, Rochas, Rozo, Senra de Arriba, Senra de Abaixo, Silval, Toxal, Toucido, Verdella, Xistro
Saiáns: Carballido, Cal do Outeiro, Garcias, Aral, Fontán, Gándara, Cova da Becha, Curbeira, Horta, Orxas, Castañal, Borreiros, Portiño, Tomada, San Xurxo, Capela, Misarelas, Estea, Pinal, Budiases, Souto, Cova da Barxa, Domeira, Cachoa, Dovesa, Fortiñon, Gondufe, Volta, Vilaverde
San Paio
San Xoán do Monte
Sárdoma
Teis: Cacharela, Mouta, Ferreira, Paradela, Fervenza, Ríos, Travesán, Presa, Chumba, Igrexa, Trapa, Arnel, Praixal, Rorís, Balbarda, A Guía, Oliveira, Espiñeiro, Frian, Santa Tegra, Bellavista, Calzada, Coutadas, Os Caños, Tovel, A Rabuda, Guixar, Barrio das Frores, Montecelo
Valadares
Vigo centro
Zamáns: Casal de Abade, Cidáns, A Igrexa (San Mamede), As Lagoas, Marcosende, A Menda, Paredes, Vilariño, Vilaverde, Erville.
Main sights
Vigo is home to the Co-Cathedral of Santa María and several museums, most of which were inaugurated between the late 1990s and early 2000s. Among them are the Museum of Contemporary Art (MARCO) and the Museum of the Sea. The oldest museum is the Quiñones de León Municipal Museum.
Casco Vello (historic centre)
Porta do Sol, Policarpo Sanz and Alameda area (modern centre)
Príncipe and Urzaiz Streets (commercial area)
Celtic Castro ruins
Castro fortress
Collegiate church of Santa Maria de Vigo
Museums
Naturnova Museum: Museum dedicated to the environment. Interactive contents.
Museum of the Sea: Museum dedicated to the Sea, and to tinned food and to naval. Important building designed by famous architects Aldo Rossi and Cesar Portela.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Vigo: One of the most important museums of Contemporary Art in Spain.
Museum of Castrelos.
Verbum, Casa das Palabras. A museum dedicated to languages and communication. Important building designed by famous architect Cesar Portela.
Pinacoteca de Vigo
Galician Center of Photography
Ethnographic Museum Liste
Pedro Barrié de la Maza Foundation
Romanesque architecture of Vigo
The municipality of Vigo is one of the most important Roman centers of Pontevedra. Although within the city one will not find much Romanesque architecture, it can be seen a few kilometers away from the city center. In many of the municipality's neighborhoods and parishes a large number of Roman ruins remain. Such is the importance of the Roman remains in Vigo that many Spanish authors have come to coin the term Romanesque Vigo (románico vigués in Spanish). Vigo retains some interesting examples of Romanesque churches in southern Galicia:
Santa María de Castrelos
Santiago de Bembrive
San Salvador de Coruxo
Beaches
Throughout the municipality of Vigo there are 47 coves and beaches, including sandy areas with waves for water sports, wild coves, family beaches, nudist beaches and urban beaches. Some of these coves and beaches have various facilities or services for their users, such as sports areas, showers, footbaths, public address system, promenade, Red Cross lifeguard and rescue post, areas adapted for people with disabilities, etc.
In June 2020, the Association for Environmental and Consumer Education (ADEAC) awarded the blue flag distinction to the following 10 beaches in Vigo: Argazada, Canido, Carril, Fontaíña, Muíños de Fortiñón, Punta, Rodas, Samil, Tombo do Gato and Vao.
Transport
Airport
Vigo is served by Vigo-Peinador Airport (VGO/LEVX). Located 12 kilometres to the east of the city of Vigo, straddling halfway the municipalities of Vigo, Redondela and Mos, it offers domestic and international destinations.
Ferry
A ferry service operates between the Port of Vigo and the towns of Cangas and Moaña as well as the Cíes Islands, 15 kilometres away from the city, part of the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park, the only National Park in Galicia, which includes Ons Island in the Pontevedra Bay.
Rail transport
The Urzáiz and Guixar railway stations serve Vigo, allowing direct connections to the rest of Galicia as well as to Porto across the border in Portugal.
Road
European route E01 goes through the town. This highway goes south through Lisbon and north to the A Coruña area.
The A-52 road goes inland, east to Ourense and Madrid from O Porriño. A branch of the AP-9 Motorway connects Vigo to Portugal in the south and with Pontevedra, Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña and Ferrol in the north.
Public transport
Urban transport is provided by buses by Vitrasa Transportation.
Economy
Vigo is characterized by a diversified economy linked to the fishing sector, industry, trade, tourism and services. It is often considered with A Coruña one of the economic and industrial engines of Galicia.
Fishing sector
Vigo is the home port of many of the world's largest fishing companies, such as Pescanova and Iberconsa and the most important centre of the Galician canned and processed fish industries.
The fishing sector in Vigo generates more than 32,000 direct and indirect jobs and a turnover of more than 1 billion euros per year. More than 660 fishing vessels are registered in the port of Vigo, making it one of the main ports for the marketing of fresh fish for human consumption in the world, with around 800,000 tonnes per year.
Vigo regularly hosts congresses and trade fairs related to industrial fishing, such as the World Tuna Conference (biannually), Conxemar (annually), or the World Fishing Exhibition (which was held periodically from 1973 to 2009).
Vigo is home of the European Fisheries Control Agency.
Industry
Vigo is one of the leading industrial areas in Galicia, with a car factory, shipyards, and auxiliary industry in both automotive and marine sectors. Situated in Vigo since 1958, the Stellantis Plant is one of the largest employers in the region. In 2007, it produced a total of 545,000 vehicles, of which more than 82% were sold outside Spain. Biotech and other advanced industries play an important role on Vigo's economy.
The publishing industry in Galician is prominent in the city, with Editorial Galaxia and Editorial Xerais.
Port of Vigo
The Port of Vigo covers a length of more than 20 km and offers more than 9 km of docks. The largest port traffic is general freight, highlighting container traffic, RO-RO of vehicles (the second in Spain in Ro-Ro traffic for new vehicles), natural stone and granite (the first of Spain in granite traffic), wood and preserved food.
Education
The main campus of the University of Vigo is located on top of one of the mountains that surrounds the town, in the parish of Zamáns. The local transportation service Vitrasa enables shuttles in order to communicate the campus with the town. The majority of the students of the university come from Vigo itself and from other towns and villages in Galicia and can choose from a wide range of studies, with a focus on ocean studies and engineering.
The University of Vigo was founded in 1990 as split from the University of Santiago de Compostela and has two additional campuses located in Pontevedra and Ourense. The Zamáns Campus features several buildings that constitute excellent examples of modern architecture that blends in with the shape of the mountain in which it is located. These buildings were projected by the likes of Enric Miralles, Alfonso Penelas, Pilar Díez y Alberto Noguerol César Portela, Gabriel Santos Zas and César Padrón.
Culture
Language
Vigo has two official languages: Galician and Spanish, the latter being the most used nowadays.
Music
A movida viguesa was a hedonistic cultural movement akin to the Movida madrileña that took place in Vigo during the 1980s triggered by the explosion of liberties after the death of dictator Francisco Franco. The most important artists of this postmodern movement were musicians; particularly punk and new wave bands such as Siniestro Total, Golpes Bajos, Aerolíneas Federales, Semen Up or Os Resentidos.
At the moment, the city still has notorious bands like Iván Ferreiro (ex-singer of Los Piratas) and Mon.
Media and entertainment
Vigo has two daily newspapers; the Faro de Vigo, the oldest newspaper in Spain still in circulation, and the Atlántico Diario, a little local newspaper. There also exist a local edition of the Galician main headline newspaper "La Voz de Galicia". Vigo was also the main location of historic newspaper such as the weekly newspaper "A Nosa Terra", which was published in Galician and is now defunct.
Vigo also has a TV local station: "Televigo". Although not very popular, it is known thanks to the town mayor, Abel Caballero, who has a show in which he answers to questions and inquiries submitted by the citizens.
Radio coverage includes RNE —the Spanish public radio network—, Radio Galega —a Galician government-supported radio in Galician language—, and some private-owned stations ("Radio Vigo - Cadena Ser", "Radio Voz Vigo", "Radio ECCA", and so on).
Around the 2000s, several online news websites emerged (for example, "riadevigo.com") besides of the traditional media homepages. Vigo also participated in the Europeanwide free newspapers rush led by "Metro" and some free journals were published in the 1990s and 2000s: "20 minutos", "Gaceta Universitaria", "Redacción Xove", etcetera. "España Exterior" is also printed in Vigo.
The locally produced award-winning feature movie Mondays In The Sun (original title Los lunes al sol) depicts the life of several men who have lost their work at the Port of Vigo. This film is not based on a single individual's experiences but on the perceived collective experiences of many local port workers.
Sports
Vigo has one of the most important women's basketball team in Spain, Celta, more commonly referred to today by its sponsorship name of Celta Indepo. They usually compete in the top league of women's basketball, having won the championship three times. For the season 2012–2013, and following a number of economic problems, the team will play in the Spanish women basketball second division.
Vigo has a football team, Real Club Celta de Vigo, which as of 2023–24, plays in La Liga. The women's team from the area, Federación Viguesa de Peñas Recreativas El Olivo, was the first team from Galicia to compete in the Women's Primera División.
The Rías Baixas offer an excellent environment for nautical sports. Institutions such as the Real Club Nautico de Vigo (RCNV), founded in 1906, and the Liceo Marítimo de Bouzas (LMB), founded in 1907, are good examples of promotion of the nautical sports, especially sailing.
The RCNV organises important events like Atlantic Week, which in September 2006 included the World Championship of the Platu 25 class. Every August, the RCNV also organises one of the largest sailboat races in the Iberian peninsula: the Regata Rías Baixas. In 2006 more than 130 different boats participated.
The Liceo Maritimo de Bouzas (LMB) is a yacht club which counts around 400 associates. The LMB has a long and intense history of sailing and recreational fishing. The LMB organizes two important regattas in the Galician sailing calendar: the Regata Vila de Bouzas and a Regata de Solitarios y a Dos.
The Regata Vila de Bouzas honours the neighbourhood where the LMB is located. The Regata de Solitarios y a Dos is for crews of one and two members. It is a difficult race with two stages; the first consists of a race through the coastal bay of Vigo while the second stage is a longer race around the Cies Islands (and/or Ons Islands).
Notable people
Amparo Alonso Betanzos, Spanish computer scientist
Dores André, ballet dancer
José María de Azcárate, art historian, author, researcher, curator, and professor, specializing in medieval Castilian art and Renaissance sculpture. Born in Vigo.
Antonio M. Pérez, CEO of Eastman Kodak
Carlos Núñez, musician
Méndez Núñez, military officer
Concepcion Picciotto, peace activist
Francisco Marcó del Pont, last governor of Chile under Spanish rule
Iago Falque, footballer
Iván Ferreiro, singer-songwriter
Rosario Hernández Diéguez, newspaper hawker and trade unionist
Manuel Manquiña, actor
Martín Codax, poet
Domingo Villar, author
Ramón Souto, composer
Ricardo Mella, anarchist activist
Ignacio Ramonet Miguez, journalist and activist, editor-in-chief of Le Monde Diplomatique (1991-2008)
Roberto Losada Rodríguez, footballer
Serafín Avendaño, painter
Manuel Porzner, cyclist
Manuela Velasco, actress
Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, choral conductor, clinician, and educator
In popular culture
Vigo Bay is one of the settings for Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The book's protagonist, Captain Nemo, draws his wealth and the funding for his submarine Nautilus from the cargoes of the galleons sunk by the British during the Battle of Vigo Bay in 1702. They are depicted as still having their treasure and as being easily accessible to divers.
In the novel and the movie Das Boot, set during World War II, the German submarine U-96 stops in Vigo under cover of darkness to resupply (in secret, as Spain is neutral) from a German cargo ship stationed there for this purpose.
Twin towns and sister cities
Vigo is twinned with:
1983 — Lorient, France
1984 — Narsaq, Greenland
1986 — Porto, Portugal
1992 — Buenos Aires, Argentina
Victoria de Durango, Mexico
Caracas, Venezuela
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Qingdao, China
Celaya, Mexico
See also
Garcia Barbon Theatre
References
External links
Official city site
Info about Vigo at Spanish Tourism Board Official Website
Jules Verne
Municipalities in the Province of Pontevedra
Populated coastal places in Spain
Port cities and towns on the Spanish Atlantic coast |
422051 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District%20Municipality%20of%20Muskoka | District Municipality of Muskoka | The District Municipality of Muskoka, more generally referred to as the District of Muskoka or Muskoka, is a regional municipality in Central Ontario, Canada. Muskoka extends from Georgian Bay in the west, to the northern tip of Lake Couchiching in the south, to the western border of Algonquin Provincial Park in the east. A two-hour drive north of Toronto, Muskoka spans . Muskoka has some 1,600 lakes, making it a popular cottaging destination.
This region, which, along with Haliburton, Kawartha Lakes, and Peterborough County is referred to as "cottage country", sees over 2.1 million visitors annually. Muskoka is an area populated with several villages and towns, farming communities, and lakeside vacation hotels and resorts near to golf courses, country clubs, and marinas. The regional government seat is Bracebridge and the largest population centre is Huntsville.
Muskoka is geographically located within the Central Ontario region of the province, although it is treated as part of Northern Ontario and even Eastern Ontario by some government programs.
Muskoka is a summer destination for Toronto residents and was the #1 most searched Canadian destination for vacation rentals in 2017. The Muskoka region was also ranked #1 for best trips of 2011 by National Geographic, and was a finalist for the same distinction in 2012.
The name of the municipality derives from a First Nations chief of the 1850s. Lake Muskoka was then the hunting grounds of a troop led by Chief Yellowhead or Mesqua Ukie or Musquakie. He was revered by the government, who built a home for him in Orillia where he lived until his death at the age of 95.
Muskoka has 60,000 permanent residents, but an additional 100,000 seasonal property owners spend their summers in the region every year, making this a major summer colony. Due to the regions' popularity and high property costs, hundreds of Muskoka properties are available to rent short-term through platforms.
Many of Muskoka's seasonal properties are large mansion-like summer estates, some of which have been passed down through families from generation to generation. Most of these expensive properties can be found along the shores of Muskoka's four major lakes: Lake Muskoka, Lake Rosseau, Lake Joseph, and Lake of Bays. In recent years, various Hollywood and sports stars have built retreats in Muskoka, including Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Mike Weir, Martin Short, Harry Hamlin, Cindy Crawford, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.
Subdivisions
There are six municipalities in Muskoka (in descending order of population):
Town of Huntsville
Town of Bracebridge
Town of Gravenhurst
Township of Muskoka Lakes
Township of Lake of Bays
Township of Georgian Bay
The aboriginal reserves Wahta Mohawk Territory and Moose Point 79 are in the Muskoka census division but are independent of the District Municipality.
History
Indigenous peoples
Geography drove history in the Muskoka region. Studded with lakes and rocks, the good land offered an abundance of fishing, hunting, and trapping, but was poorly suited to farming. The Muskoka and Haliburton area, with its chain of lakes and rivers, its fur-bearing animals, its fish, wild fruit, and maple sap, would have supported a large Indigenous population, but written evidence suggests that until very recent years it has harboured only nomadic groups. Largely the land of the Ojibwa people, European inhabitants ignored it while settling what they thought were the more promising area south of the Severn River. The Ojibwa leader associated with the area was "Mesqua Ukie", for whom the land is believed named, as he was liked by the European Canadians. The tribe lived south of the region, near present-day Orillia. They used Muskoka as their hunting grounds. Another Ojibwa tribe lived in the area of Port Carling, then called "Obajewanung". The tribe moved to Parry Sound around 1866.
In the present day, Muskoka contains four First Nations reserves:
Wahta Mohawk Territory - an area used for hunting and fishing by Mohawk from the independentKanesatake and Kahnewake reserves.
Indian River - shared between the Wahta and the Chippewas of Rama First Nation
Moose Point 79
Chippewa Island - shared between the Beausoleil First Nation, the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation and the Chippewas of Rama First Nation
European arrival
Until the late 1760s, the European presence in the region was largely limited to seasonal fur trappers, but no significant trading settlements were established. Following the American War of Independence, the British North America government feared invasion from its new neighbour to the south. The authorities began exploring the region, hoping to develop a settled population and find travel lanes between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay. The first European known to have caught even a glimpse of Muskoka or Haliburton was a French youth, usually identified as Étienne Brûlé, and the year was in 1610 or 1611. In 1826, Lieutenant Henry Briscoe became the first European man known to have crossed the middle of Muskoka. The explorer David Thompson drew the first maps of the area in 1837 and possibly camped near present-day Beaumaris.
Canada experienced heavy immigration from Europe in the 19th century, and Muskoka was no different. Large numbers of settlers from the United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent, Germany began to arrive. As the land south of the Severn was settled, the government planned to open the Muskoka region further north to settlement. Logging licences were issued in 1866 which opened Monck Township to logging.
The lumber industry expanded rapidly, denuding huge tracts of the area. Road and water transportation was developed and used later to facilitate town settlement. Road transportation took the form of the Muskoka Colonization Road, begun in 1858 and reaching Bracebridge in 1861. The road was roughly cut through from the woods and was of corduroy construction. Logs were placed perpendicular to the route of travel to keep carriages from sinking in the mud and swamps. This made for extremely rugged travel.
The railroad pushed north to support the industry, reaching Gravenhurst in 1875 and Bracebridge in 1885. The lumbering industry spawned a number of ancillary developments, with settlements springing up to supply the workers. Bracebridge (formerly North Falls) saw some leather-tanning businesses develop. Tanners used the bark from lumber to tan hides, turning what would otherwise be a waste product to effective use.
Formation of the Territorial District
The District was created in 1868, through the withdrawal of townships and unorganized territory from three other jurisdictions:
The townships of Stisted, Chaffey, Franklin and Ridout (all from Victoria County) were transferred to the District in 1873, while Humphrey Township was transferred to the Parry Sound District. In 1876, the boundaries of the District were formally defined by statute:
to the south, the middle of the main channel of the Severn River, and a line formed by the southerly boundaries of the townships of Morrison and Ryde, the easterly boundary of Ryde, the southerly boundary of the township of Oakley, the easterly boundary of Oakley, and the southerly boundary of the township of Ridout;
to the east, the Bobcaygeon Road and the line surveyed for its continuation;
to the north, the southerly boundary of the Territorial District of Parry Sound, and, in that regard, the newly surveyed Conger Township was transferred to Parry Sound; and
to the west, the waters of Georgian Bay, including its islands.
Although the townships were part of the District, they were still allied with their original counties for municipal purposes. This was rectified in 1877, when all of the District was declared to be within Simcoe County. This lasted until 1888, when it was separated from that County.
Settlement
The passage of the Free Grants and Homestead Act of 1868, opened the era of widespread settlement to Muskoka. Settlers could receive free land if they agreed to clear the land, have at least under cultivation, and build a 16x20 ft, or house. Settlers under the Homestead Act, however, found the going hard. Clearing 15 acres of dense forest is a huge task. Once the land was clear, the settlers had to attack Muskoka's ubiquitous rocks, which also had to be cleared. Consisting largely of a dense clay, the soil in the region turned out to be poorly suited to farming.
As news of the difficult conditions spread back to the south, development in Muskoka began to falter, but development of the steamship revived industry. In a time when the railroads had not yet arrived and road travel was notoriously unreliable and uncomfortable, the transportation king was the steamship. Once a land connection was made to the southern part of the lake in Gravenhurst, the logging companies could harvest trees along the entire lakefront with relative ease. Steamships gave them the way to ship the harvest back to the sawmills in Gravenhurst.
The steamship era
Sometimes called the Father of Muskoka, Alexander Cockburn began placing steamers on the lake system. Starting with his steamship the Wenonah, Ojibwa for "first daughter", in 1866 Cockburn pressed the government to open the entire Muskoka lake system to navigation. He urged installing locks in Port Carling and opening a cut between Lake Rosseau and Lake Joseph at Port Sanfield. The government was eager to reinforce development in light of the faltering agricultural plan, and built the big locks in Port Carling in 1871. Cockburn's steamers had access to the entire lake system. Through the years he added more ships; when he died in 1905, his Muskoka Navigation Company was the largest of its kind in Canada.
Shortly after the arrival of the steamships, another industry began to develop as agriculture never could. 1860 two young men, John Campbell and James Bain Jr, made a journey that marked them as perhaps the first tourists in the region. Taking the Northern Railway to Lake Simcoe, they took the steamer Emily May up the lake to Orillia, and rowed across Lake Couchiching. They walked up the Colonization Road to Gravenhurst, where they vacationed. They liked what they saw and repeated the journey every year, bringing friends and relatives. These early tourist pioneers increased demand for transport services in the region. People were drawn by the fishing, natural environment, and an air free of ragweed, providing relief for hay fever sufferers.
Early tourists built camps, but were joined by others desiring better accommodations. Farmers who were barely scratching a living from the rocky soil soon found demand for overnight accommodations arriving on their doorsteps. Some made the switch quickly and converted to boarding houses and hotels. The first wilderness hotel, called Rosseau House, was built at the head of Lake Rosseau in 1870. It was owned by New Yorker William H. Pratt. The idea caught on and the number of tourists increased, establishing the tourist industry as the up-and-coming money earner in the 1880s.
The steamship era gave rise to the area's great hotels: Rosseau, Royal Muskoka, Windermere, Clevelands House, Beaumaris, and many more. When the railroad reached Gravenhurst in 1875, the area grew rapidly. Travel from Toronto, Pittsburgh, and New York City became less a matter of endurance than expenditure. Trains regularly made the run from Toronto to Gravenhurst, where travellers and their luggage were transferred to the great steamers of the Muskoka Navigation Co, such as the Sagamo. Making regular stops up the lakes, including at Bracebridge, Beaumaris, and Port Carling, tourists could transfer to smaller ships, such as the Islander. These could reach smaller ports. Improving transportation links opened smaller or more remote upper Muskoka lakes (Fairy, Vernon, Mary, Peninsula and Lake of Bays) to tourism around the turn of the 20th century, with steamers out of Huntsville servicing hotels like Deerhurst on Peninsula Lake. The Portage Railway between Peninsula Lake and Lake of Bays enabled comparatively easy access to the latter, resulting in a blossoming of tourism there, with 21 hotels eventually springing up, among them notably the Wawa and Britannia hotels and perhaps culminating in the Bigwin Inn.
The hotels became the centres of wealthy vacationers' lives, and families conducted extended stays that could stretch for weeks or months in the summer. As families became seasonally established, they began building cottages near the hotels; at first simple affairs replicating the rustic environment of the early camps. Later they built grander homes, including in some cases, housing for significant domestic staff. Initially cottagers relied on rowboats and canoes for daily transport and would sometimes row substantial distances. In the era of the steam and gasoline launch, tourists relied less on muscle power and more on motors. With the boats, the wealthier summer people built boathouses, often elaborate structures in their own right, in many cases designed with the look and feel of the main "cottage".
In 1887, the Nipissing II was built in Glasgow, Scotland and assembled in Gravenhurst, Ontario. Originally a side paddlewheel steamer, the Nipissing II plied the lakes of Muskoka for decades before decommission in 1914. In 1924, the vessel was outfitted with twin propeller engines and in 1925 was relaunched with an Ojibwe name, Segwun, meaning "springtime." Royal Mail Ship Segwun is still in operation today in Gravenhurst, Ontario, functioning as a pleasure cruise vessel and still delivering mail.
The coming of the car
World War I caused a significant dip in the tourist activity for the area and hence the economy. After the war, however, significant advances in the automobile brought demand for improved (paved) roads. These two developments, motorboats and private cars, brought greater overall development of the area; they also stimulated the spread of development around the lakes, as people no longer needed to be near major landings. Freed from the ports of call of the steamships, people built cottages farther afield. Demand began dropping for passenger billets on the steamship lines.
Meanwhile, demand increased for air transportation. The earliest runways of Muskoka Airport were laid out in 1933. The airport has been intermittently upgraded. It was used strategically during World War II as a training field for the Norwegian Air Force after the Nazi occupation of Norway.
The demands of World War II slowed residential development in this area. Wartime shortages kept many Americans at home and many Canadians were engaged in war activities. Postwar prosperity brought another boom based around the availability of the automobile, improved roads, and the newly affordable fiberglass boat. Suddenly owning a summer cottage became possible not only for the adventurous or the wealthy, but for many in the middle class. They traveled by private automobiles, and the steamship companies were forced to retire their ships one by one, until the last sailing in the late 1950s.
Evolution of local government
The District was formed from unorganized territory which was only partially surveyed into geographic townships by 1868. Surveying was completed in the coming years, and most, but not all, townships became organized municipally. The first townships were organized in 1869. In 1970, four geographic townships still existed in the District.
In 1873, the organized townships were formed into a municipality similar to a county, known as the "Municipal Corporation of the District of Muskoka." Its constituent municipalities were:
Township of Humphrey
United Townships of Medora and Wood
United Townships of McLean and Ridout
United Townships of Stisted, Chaffey, Brunel and Franklin
United Townships of Cardwell and Watt
Township of Monck
Township of Morrison
United Townships of Draper, Oakley and Ryde
Township of Macauley
Township of Stevenson
Its authority did not extend to the geographic townships. Provision was made in 1888 for a procedure to erect the District into a provisional county, but it was never invoked and was quietly repealed in 1911.
The District, unlike a county in Ontario, did not initially have the status of being a separate judicial district. Such an identity followed that for municipal purposes until 1888, when it became part of the "United Provisional Judicial District of Muskoka and Parry Sound", but it did have its own District Court and Surrogate Court This would continue until 1899, when Muskoka and Parry Sound were divided into separate provisional judicial districts.
In 1967, the Muskoka District Council was advised that J.W. Spooner, Ontario's Minister of Municipal Affairs, had appointed Donald M. Paterson to conduct a review of the District's local government arrangements. The report was released in June 1969, and its recommendations were substantially adopted by the new Minister Darcy McKeough, and subsequently implemented in January 1971, when the entire District was formally established as an upper-tier municipality consisting of the following municipalities:
Demographics
As a census division in the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the District Municipality of Muskoka had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
Senior administrators
John Klinck, Chair and CEO
Michael Duben, Chief Administrative Officer
Fred Jahn, Commissioner of Public Works
See also
List of municipalities in Ontario
List of townships in Ontario
St. Elmo
List of secondary schools in Ontario#District Municipality of Muskoka
References
Bracebridge Gazette, November 11, 1937, an address by Redmond Thomas, Assistant Editor of the Bracebridge Gazette, delivered to a meeting of the Men Teachers' Federation of Muskoka.
External links
Muskoka |
422068 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Israelis | List of Israelis | Israelis ( Yiśraʾelim) are the citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel, a multiethnic state populated by people of different ethnic backgrounds. The largest ethnic groups in Israel are Jews (75%), followed by Arabs (20%) and other minorities (5%).
Academics
Archaeology
Israel Finkelstein
Amihai Mazar
Benjamin Mazar
Eilat Mazar
Yigael Yadin
Amit Romano
Biology and medicine
Aaron Valero – Professor of Medicine, founder of Faculty of Medicine at the Technion, director of government hospital
Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko – ubiquitin system; Lasker Award (2000), Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2004)
Moshe Feldenkrais – invented Feldenkrais Method used in movement therapy
Hossam Haick – inventor of an electric nose for diagnosis of cancer
Israel Hanukoglu – structures of cytoskeletal keratins, NADP binding proteins, steroidogenic enzymes, Epithelial Sodium Channels (ENaC)
Gavriel Iddan – inventor of capsule endoscopy
Benjamin Kahn – marine biologist, defender of the Red Sea reef
Alexander Levitzki – cancer research; Wolf Prize in Medicine (2005)
Yadin Dudai – memory research
Gideon Mer – scientist, malaria control
Saul Merin – ophthalmologist, author of Inherited Eye Diseases
Raphael Mechoulam – chemist, discoverer of tetrahydrocannabinol and anandamide
Leo Sachs – blood cell research; Wolf Prize in Medicine (1980)
Asya Rolls – psychoneuroimmunologist
Michael Sela and Ruth Arnon – developed Copaxone; Wolf Prize in Medicine (1998)
Rahel Straus (1880–1963) – German-Jewish medical doctor and feminist
Joel Sussman – 3D structure of acetylcholinesterase, Elkeles Prize for Research in Medicine (2005)
Meir Wilchek – affinity chromatography; Wolf Prize in Medicine (1987)
Ada Yonath – structure of ribosome, Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2009)
Amotz Zahavi – Handicap Principle
Abraham Zangen – psycholobiology
Computing and mathematics
Ron Aharoni – mathematician
Noga Alon – mathematician, computer scientist, winner of the Gödel Prize (2005)
Shimshon Amitsur – mathematician ring theory abstract algebra
Robert Aumann – mathematician game theory; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2005)
Amir Ban and Shay Bushinsky – programmers of Junior (chess)
Yehoshua Bar-Hillel – machine translation
Joseph Bernstein – mathematician
Eli Biham – differential cryptanalysis
Yair Censor – mathematician
Aryeh Dvoretzky – mathematician, eighth president of the Weizmann Institute of Science
Uriel Feige – computer scientist, winner of the Gödel Prize (2001)
Abraham Fraenkel – ZF set theory
Hillel Furstenberg – mathematician; Wolf Prize in Mathematics (2006/7)
Shafi Goldwasser – computer scientist, winner of the Gödel Prize (1993 and 2001)
David Harel – computer science; Israel Prize (2004)
Gad M. Landau – computer scientist
Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv – LZW compression; IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal (2007 and 1995)
Joram Lindenstrauss – mathematician Johnson–Lindenstrauss lemma
Elon Lindenstrauss – mathematician
Michel Loève – probabilist
Joel Moses – MIT provost and writer of Macsyma
Yoram Moses – computer scientist, winner of the Gödel Prize (1997)
Judea Pearl – artificial intelligence, philosophy of action; Turing Award (2011)
Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro – representation theory; Wolf Prize in Mathematics (1990)
Amir Pnueli – temporal logic; Turing Award (1996)
Michael O. Rabin – nondeterminism, primality testing; Turing Award (1976)
Shmuel Safra – computer scientist, winner of the Gödel Prize (2001)
Nir Shavit – computer scientist, winner of the Gödel Prize (2004)
Adi Shamir – RSA encryption, differential cryptanalysis; Turing Award (2002)
Saharon Shelah – logic; Wolf Prize in Mathematics (2001)
Ehud Shapiro – Concurrent Prolog, DNA computing pioneer
Moshe Y. Vardi – computer scientist, winner of the Gödel Prize (2000)
Avi Wigderson – randomized algorithms; Nevanlinna Prize (1994)
Doron Zeilberger – combinatorics
Engineering
David Faiman – solar engineer and director of the National Solar Energy Center
Yoram Koren – mechanical engineering
Liviu Librescu – Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Tech, killed in the Virginia Tech massacre
Hagit Messer Yaron – professor of electrical engineering
Moshe Zakai – electrical engineering
Jacob Ziv – electrical engineering
Humanities
Aharon Dolgopolsky – linguist: Nostratic
Moshe Goshen-Gottstein – Biblical scholar
Elias Khoury – law
Hans Jakob Polotsky – linguist
Chaim Rabin – Biblical scholar
Alice Shalvi – English literature, educator
Gershon Shaked – Hebrew literature
Shemaryahu Talmon – Biblical scholar
Emanuel Tov – Biblical scholar
Ghil'ad Zuckermann – linguist, revivalist
Philosophy
Martin Buber
Berl Katznelson
Yeshayahu Leibowitz
Avishai Margalit
Joseph Raz
Gershom Scholem
Physics and chemistry
Yakir Aharonov – Aharonov–Bohm effect; Wolf Prize in Physics (1998)
Uri Banin – chemist
Amiram Barkai – biochemist
Jacob Bekenstein – black hole thermodynamics; Wolf Prize in Physics (2012)
David Deutsch – quantum computing pioneer; Paul Dirac Prize (1998)
Joshua Jortner and Rafi Levine – molecular energy; Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1988)
Josef Imry – physicist
Aaron Katzir – physical chemistry
Ephraim Katzir – immobilized enzymes; Japan Prize (1985); fourth president of Israel List of presidents of Israel
Michael Levitt – Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2011)
Zvi Lipkin – physicist
Dan T. Major – professor of chemistry
Boris Mavashev – seismologist
Mordehai Milgrom – Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND)
Yuval Ne'eman – the "Eightfold way"
Asher Peres – quantum theory
Giulio Racah – spectroscopy
Nathan Rosen – EPR paradox
Nathan Seiberg – string theory
Dan Shechtman – quasicrystals; Wolf Prize in Physics (1999), Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2013)
Igal Talmi – nuclear physics
Tsippy Tamiri – chemistry
Reshef Tenne – discovered inorganic fullerenes and non-carbon nanotubes
Arieh Warshel – Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2013)
Chaim Weizmann – acetone production
Social sciences
Yehuda Bauer – historian
Dany Bahar (economist) - economist
Daniel Elazar – political scientist
Esther Farbstein – historian
Haim Ginott – psychologist: child psychology
Eliyahu Goldratt – business consultant: Theory of Constraints
Louis Guttman – sociologist
Yuval Noah Harari – historian and author who wrote best selling book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Michael Harris – public policy scholar and university administrator
Elhanan Helpman – economist: international trade
Daniel Kahneman – behavioural scientist: prospect theory; Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2002)
Smadar Lavie – anthropologist
Benny Morris – historian
Erich Neumann – analytical psychologist: development, consciousness
Nurit Peled-Elhanan – educator
Renee Rabinowitz – psychologist and lawyer
Sheizaf Rafaeli – management, information, communication
Anat Rafaeli – organisational behaviour
Ariel Rubinstein – economist
Moshe Sharon – historian
Avi Shlaim – historian
Abraham Solomonick – semiotician, linguist
Amos Tversky – behavioral scientist: prospect theory with Daniel Kahneman
Hanan Yoran – historian
Activists
Uri Avnery – peace activist, Gush Shalom
Yael Dayan – writer, politician, activist
Esther Eillam – feminist activist
Uzi Even – gay rights activist
Yehuda Glick – activist for Jewish rights at the Temple Mount
Shula Keshet – Mizrahi feminist, activist and artist
Hagar Rublev (1954–2000) – peace activist
Uri Savir – peace negotiator, Peres Center for Peace
Israel Shahak – political activist
Natan Sharansky – Soviet-era human rights activist
Ronny Edry and Michal Tamir – originators of the Israel-Loves-Iran peace movement and its offshoots
Architects
Michael Arad
Ram Karmi
Richard Kauffmann
David Kroyanker
David Resnick
Moshe Safdie
Arieh Sharon
Athletes
Association football (soccer)
Avram Grant – Israeli head coach & manager (Chelsea F.C. & Israel national team)
Eyal Ben Ami – midfielder various clubs, national team
Yaniv Ben-Nissan – midfielder
Dudu Aouate – goalkeeper (RCD Mallorca, national team)
Jonathan Assous – defensive midfielder (Hapoel Petah Tikva), of French origin
Gai Assulin – winger/attacking midfielder (Manchester City, national team)
Ronen Badash – midfielder
Pini Balili – striker (Bnei Yehuda Tel Aviv, Israel national team)
Yossi Benayoun – attacking midfielder, (Israel national tema captain, as well as the national most capped footballer) Hapoel Be'er Sheva, Maccabi Haifa, Racing Santander, West Ham United, Liverpool, Chelsea
Gil Cain – defender, Hapoel Azor
David "Dedi" Ben Dayan – left defender (Hapoel Tel Aviv, national team)
Tal Ben Haim – center back/right back, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Bolton Wanderers, Chelsea, West Ham United
Daniel Brailovski – midfielder (Argentina, Uruguay, and Israel national teams)
Roberto Colautti – Argentine born-striker
Tomer Chencinski – goaltender (Vaasan Palloseura)
Avi Cohen – defender, Liverpool and national team
Tamir Cohen – midfielder (Bolton Wanderers and national team)
Rami Gershon – centre back / left back
Tvrtko Kale – Croatia/Israel, goalkeeper (Hapoel Haifa)
Yaniv Katan – forward/winger (Maccabi Haifa, national team)
Eli Ohana – won UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and Bravo Award (most outstanding young player in Europe); national team; manager
Haim Revivo – attacking/side midfielder (Israel national team), Maccabi Haifa, Celta de Vigo, Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray
Ronnie Rosenthal – left winger/striker (Israel national team), Maccabi Haifa, Liverpool, Tottenham, Watford
Ben Sahar – striker/winger (Hapoel Tel Aviv, national team)
Mordechai Spiegler – striker (Israel national team), manager
Idan Tal – midfielder (Beitar Jerusalem FC and Israel national team)
Salim Tuama – soccer player playing for Hapoel Tel Aviv who has in the past played for Standard Liège, Maccabi Petah Tikva, Kayserispor, Larissa and the youth club Gadna Tel Aviv Yehuda.
Yochanan Vollach – defender (Israel national team); current president of Maccabi Haifa
Pini Zahavi – UK-based super-agent
Itzik Zohar – attacking midfielder (Israel national team), Maccabi Jaffa, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Royal Antwerp, Beitar Jerusalem, Crystal Palace, Maccabi Haifa, Maccabi Herzliya, Maccabi Netanya, F.C. Ashdod, Hapoel Nazareth Illit
Eyal Berkovic – attacking midfielder (English Premier League clubs & Celtic F.C. & Israel national team)
Eran Zahavi – forward (PSV Eindhoven & Israel national team captain, as well as the national top goalscorer)
Manor Solomon – winger/attacking midfielder (Fulham F.C. & Israel national team)
Basketball
Miki Berkovich – Maccabi Tel Aviv
David Blu – (formerly "Bluthenthal"), EuroLeague 6' 7" forward (Maccabi Tel Aviv)
Tal Brody – Euroleague 6' 2" shooting guard, Maccabi Tel Aviv
Tal Burstein – Maccabi Tel Aviv
Omri Casspi – 6' 9" small forward, drafted in 1st round of 2009 NBA draft (Golden State Warriors)
Tanhum Cohen-Mintz – 6' 8" center; 2× Euroleague All-Star
Shay Doron – WNBA 5' 9" guard, University of Maryland (New York Liberty)
Lior Eliyahu – 6' 9" power forward, NBA draft 2006 (Orlando Magic; traded to Houston Rockets), but completed mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces and played in the Euroleague (Maccabi Tel Aviv)
Tamir Goodman – U.S. and Israel, 6' 3" shooting guard
Yotam Halperin – 6' 5" guard, drafted in 2006 NBA draft by Seattle SuperSonics (Olympiacos)
T. J. Leaf – NBA basketball player
Gal Mekel – NBA basketball player
Yehoshua Rozin – basketball coach
Derrick Sharp – American-Israeli basketball player
Amit Tamir – 6' 10" center/forward, University of California, PAOK Thessaloniki (Hapoel Jerusalem)
Bodybuilding
Alana Shipp – American/Israeli IFBB professional bodybuilder
Boxing
Salamo Arouch (The Ballet Dancer) – middleweight champion of Greece, lightweight, welterweight, middleweight. He survived the Holocaust by boxing (over 200 bouts) for the entertainment of Nazi officers in Auschwitz Concentration Camp. His story was portrayed in the 1989 film "Triumph of the Spirit"
Sarah Avraham – kickboxer, 2014 Women's World Thai-Boxing Champion in 57–63 kilos (125–140 pounds)
Hagar Finer – WIBF bantamweight champion
Yuri Foreman – U.S. middleweight and World Boxing Association super welterweight champion
Roman Greenberg – ("The Lion from Zion"), International Boxing Organization's Intercontinental heavyweight champion
Pavlo Ishchenko – 2-time European Amateur Boxing Championships medalist, and European Games medalist
Yulia Sachkov – world champion kickboxer
Fencing
Boaz Ellis (born 1981) – foil, 5-time Israeli champion
Yuval Freilich (born 1995) – épée, 2019 European Épée Champion
Lydia Hatoel-Zuckerman (born 1963) – foil, 6-time Israeli champion
Delila Hatuel (born 1980) – Olympic foil fencer
Noam Mills (born 1986) – épée, junior female world champion, 4-time Israeli champion
Ayelet Ohayon (born 1974) – foil, European champion
Tomer Or (born 1978) – foil, junior world champion
Andre Spitzer (1945–1972) – killed by terrorists
Figure skating
Alexei Beletski – ice dancer, Olympian
Oleksii Bychenko – figure skater, Olympian, European silver medallist 2016
Galit Chait – ice dancer, World Championship bronze 2002
Natalia Gudina – figure skater, Olympian
Tamar Katz – figure skater
Lionel Rumi – ice dancer
Sergei Sakhnovsky – ice dancer, World Championship Bronze medal 2002
Daniel Samohin – figure skater, Olympian, 2016 World Junior Champion
Michael Shmerkin – figure skater
Alexandra Zaretski – ice dancer, Olympian
Roman Zaretski – ice dancer, Olympian
Golf
Laetitia Beck – golfer
Gymnastics
Alexander Shatilov – World bronze (artistic gymnast; floor exercise)
Artem Dolgopyat – artistic gymnast (Olympic gold: 2020)
Linoy Ashram – rhythmic gymnast (Olympic gold: 2020)
Neta Rivkin – rhythmic gymnast
Nicol Zelikman – rhythmic gymnast
Judo
Yael Arad – judoka (Olympic silver: 1992, European champion: 1993, world silver: 1993). First Israeli Olympic medalist; light-middleweight
Yarden Gerbi – judoka (Olympic bronze: 2016)
Andrian Kordon – European Championship bronze; heavyweight
Daniela Krukower – Israeli/Argentine judoka, World Champion (under 63 kg)
Yoel Razvozov – 2-time European Championship silver; lightweight
Or Sasson – judoka (Olympic bronze: 2016)
Oren Smadja – judoka (Olympic bronze: 1992; lightweight)
Ehud Vaks – judoka (half-lightweight)
Gal Yekutiel – European championship bronze
Ariel Ze'evi – judoka (European champion: 2000, 2003, 2004; Olympic bronze: 2004; 100 kg)
Motor racing
Alon Day – Former NASCAR Euro Series Racing Driver
Chanoch Nissany – Former Racing Driver and Formula One Test Driver
Roy Nissany – FIA Formula 2 Racing Driver
Ido Cohen - FIA Formula 3 Racing Driver
Ariel Elkin - Italian Formula 4 Racing Driver
Alon Gabbay - Porsche Carrera Cup Germany Racing Driver
Ariel Levi - Porsche Carrera Cup GT3 Racing Driver
Sailing
Zefania Carmel – yachtsman, world champion (420 class)
Gal Fridman – windsurfer (Olympic gold: 2004 (Israel's first gold medalist), bronze: 1996 (Mistral class); world champion: 2002)
Lee Korzits – windsurfer (two-time Olympian and four-time world champion)
Lydia Lazarov – yachting world champion (420 class)
Nimrod Mashiah – windsurfer; World Championship silver, ranked # 1 in world.
Katy Spychakov – windsurfer; World Championship silver
Shahar Tzuberi – windsurfer, Olympic bronze (RS:X discipline); 2009 & 2010 European Windsurf champion
Surfing
Anat Lelior – female surfer who competed for Israel at the 2020 Olympic Games
Swimming
Vadim Alexeev – swimmer, breaststroke
Adi Bichman – 400-m and 800-m freestyle, 400-m medley
Yoav Bruck – 50-m freestyle and 100-m freestyle
Anastasia Gorbenko (born 2003) – backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle
Eran Groumi – 100 and 200 m backstroke, 100-m butterfly
Michael "Miki" Halika – 200-m butterfly, 200- and 400-m individual medley
Judith Haspel – (born "Judith Deutsch"), of Austrian origin, held every Austrian women's middle and long-distance freestyle record in 1935; refused to represent Austria in 1936 Summer Olympics along with Ruth Langer and Lucie Goldner, protesting Hitler, stating, "We do not boycott Olympia, but Berlin".
Marc Hinawi – record holder in the European Games
Amit Ivry – Maccabiah and Israeli records in Women's 100 m butterfly, Israeli record in Women's 200 m Individual Medley, bronze medal in 100 m butterfly at the European Swimming Championships.
Dan Kutler – of U.S. origin; 100-m butterfly, 4×100-m medley relay
Keren Leibovitch – Paralympic swimmer, 4x-gold-medal-winner, 100-m backstroke, 50- and 100-m freestyle, 200-m individual medley
Tal Stricker – 100- and 200-m breaststroke, 4×100-m medley relay
Eithan Urbach – backstroke swimmer, European championship silver and bronze; 100-m backstroke
Table tennis
Marina Kravchenko – table tennis player, Soviet and Israel national teams
Angelica Rozeanu – (Adelstin), of Romanian origin, 17-time world table tennis champion, ITTFHoF
Taekwondo
Avishag Semberg – taekwondo female athlete (Olympic bronze: 2020)
Tennis
Noam Behr
Ilana Berger
Gilad Bloom
Jonathan Erlich – 6 doubles titles, 6 doubles finals; won 2008 Australian Open Men's Doubles (w/Andy Ram), highest world doubles ranking # 5
Shlomo Glickstein – highest world singles ranking # 22, highest world doubles ranking # 28
Julia Glushko
Amir Hadad
Harel Levy – highest world singles ranking # 30
Evgenia Linetskaya
Amos Mansdorf – highest world singles ranking # 18
Tzipora Obziler
Noam Okun
Yshai Oliel
Shahar Pe'er – (3 WTA career titles), highest world singles ranking # 11, highest world doubles ranking # 14
Keren Shlomo – (3 ITF career titles)
Shahar Perkiss
Andy Ram – 6 doubles titles, 6 doubles finals, 1 mixed double title (won 2006 Wimbledon Mixed Doubles (w/Vera Zvonareva), 2007 French Open Mixed Doubles (w/Nathalie Dechy), 2008 Australian Open Men's Doubles (w/Jonathan Erlich), highest world doubles ranking # 5
Eyal Ran
Dudi Sela – highest world singles ranking # 29
Denis Shapovalov (born 1999) – Israeli-Canadian tennis player, born in Tel Aviv, highest world singles ranking # 29
Anna Smashnova – (12 WTA career titles), highest world singles ranking # 15
Track and field
Alex Averbukh – pole vaulter (European champion: 2002, 2006)
Ayele Seteng – long-distance runner, he was the oldest track and field athlete competing at the 2004 Olympics and 2008 Olympics.
Danielle Frenkel – high jump champion
Hanna Knyazyeva-Minenko – triple jumper and long jumper; participated in 2012 Summer Olympics
Shaul Ladany – world-record-holding racewalker, Bergen-Belsen survivor, Munich Massacre survivor, Professor of Industrial Engineering
Lonah Chemtai Salpeter – Kenyan-Israeli Olympic marathon runner
Esther Roth-Shachamarov – track and field, hurdler and sprinter (5 Asian Game golds)
Other
1972 Olympic team – see Munich Massacre
David Mark Berger – weightlifter originally from US, Maccabiah champion (middleweight); killed in the Munich Massacre
Max Birbraer – ice hockey player drafted by NHL team (New Jersey Devils)
Nili Block (born 1995) – world champion kickboxer and Muay Thai fighter
Noam Dar – Israeli-born Scottish wrestler
Oren Eizenman – ice hockey player, Israel national team; Connecticut Whale)
Eli Elezra – professional poker player
Boris Gelfand, Emil Sutovsky, Ilya Smirin – chess Grandmasters (~2700 peak Elo rating)
Baruch Hagai – wheelchair athlete (multiple paralympic golds)
Michael Kolganov – sprint canoer/kayak paddler, world champion, Olympic bronze 2000 (K-1 500-meter)
Dean Kremer (born 1996) – Israeli-American Major League Baseball pitcher
Imi Lichtenfeld — Hungarian-born Israeli martial artist, developer of Krav Maga
Ido Pariente – mixed martial artist
Eliezer Sherbatov (born 1991) – Israeli-Canadian ice hockey player
Chagai Zamir – Israel, 4-time Paralympic Games champion
Chefs
Yisrael Aharoni – chef and restaurateur & reality television judge
Michal Ansky – female chef & reality television judge
Jamie Geller – American born-Israeli chef
Erez Komarovsky – first artisanal bread baker in Israel & reality television judge
Yotam Ottolenghi – Israeli-British chef
Moshik Roth – chef with 2 Michelin stars & reality television judge
Assaf Granit – chef with 1 Michelin star & reality television judge
Entertainment
Artists
Yaacov Agam – kinetic artist
Ron Arad – designer
Mordecai Ardon – painter
David Ascalon – sculptor and synagogue designer
Maurice Ascalon – sculptor and industrial designer
Isidor Ascheim – painter and printmaker
Mordechai Avniel – painter and sculptor
Yigal Azrouel – fashion designer
Ralph Bakshi – animation (director)
Eyal ben-Moshe (Eyal B) – animator and director
Tuvia Beeri – printmaker
Alexander Bogen – painter
Rhea Carmi – painter
Yitzhak Danziger – sculptor
Alber Elbaz – fashion designer
Ohad Elimelech – artist, director, editor, photographer, animator, lecturer, and graphic designer
Osnat Elkabir – dancer, artist and theatre direction
Sharon Eyal – dancer, choreographer
Gadi Fraiman – sculptor
Yitzhak Frenkel Frenel– École de Paris painter and sculptor
Gideon Gechtman – sculptor
Moshe Gershuni – painter
Dudu Geva – artist and comic-strip illustrator
Pinhas Golan – sculptor
Nachum Gutman – painter
Israel Hershberg – realist painter
Shimshon Holzman – painter
Leo Kahn – painter
Shemuel Katz – illustrator
Uri Katzenstein – visual artist
Dani Karavan – sculptor
Joseph Kossonogi – painter
Elyasaf Kowner – video artist
Sigalit Landau – video, installation, sculpture
Alex Levac – photographer
Batia Lishansky – sculptor
Ranan Lurie – political cartoonist
Lea Nikel – painter
Zvi Malnovitzer – painter
Tamara Musakhanova – sculptor and ceramist
Mushail Mushailov – painter
Ilana Raviv – painter
Leo Roth – painter
Reuven Rubin – painter
Hagit Shahal – painter
David Tartakover – graphic designer
Anna Ticho – painter
Igael Tumarkin – sculptor
Yemima Ergas Vroman – painter, sculptor, installation artist
Sergey Zagraevsky – painter
Moshe Ziffer – sculptor
Film, TV, radio, and stage
Avital Abergel – film and TV actress
Gila Almagor – actress
Aviv Alush – actor
Lior Ashkenazi – actor
Yvan Attal – actor and director
Mili Avital – actress
Aki Avni – actor
Orna Banai – actress
Theodore Bikel – actor
Eddie Carmel, born Oded Ha-Carmeili – actor, singer, and circus sideshow act
Jason Danino-Holt – television presenter
Ronit Elkabetz – actress
David Faitelson – Mexican television sports commentator, born in Israel
Oded Fehr – actor
Eytan Fox – director
Tal Friedman – actor and comedian
Gal Gadot – actress and model & Miss Israel 2004
Uri Geller – TV personality, self-proclaimed psychic
Amos Gitai – director
Yasmeen Godder – choreographer and dancer
Arnon Goldfinger – director
Yael Grobglas – actress
Shira Haas – actress
Dana Ivgy – actress
Michael Karpin – broadcast journalist and author
Daphna Kastner – actress; married to actor Harvey Keitel
Juliano Mer-Khamis – actor
Hila Klein – YouTuber of h3h3productions
Amos Kollek – director and writer
Dover Kosashvili – director
Hanna Laslo – actress
Daliah Lavi – actress
Inbar Lavi – actress
Bar Paly – actress and model
Jonah Lotan – actor
Rod Lurie – director and film critic
Arnon Milchan – producer
Avi Arad – producer and founder of Marvel Studios
Samuel Maoz – director
Ohad Naharin – choreographer
Eyal Podell – actor
Orna Porat – actress
Natalie Portman – actress
Lior Raz – actor and screenwriter
Ze'ev Revach – actor and comedian
Agam Rudberg – actress and model
Avner Strauss – musician
Haim Saban – TV producer and co-founder of Saban Entertainment
Elia Suleiman – director
Alona Tal – actress
Noa Tishby – actress and producer
Chaim Topol – actor
Raviv Ullman – actor
Yaron London – journalist and television host
Keren Yedaya – director
Becky Griffin – television host and model
Rotem Sela – television host, actress, and model
Ayelet Zurer – actress
Odeya Rush – actress and model
Tomer Capone – actor
Musicians
Classical composers
Rami Bar-Niv
Ofer Ben-Amots
Paul Ben-Haim
Avner Dorman
Dror Elimelech
Andre Hajdu
Gilad Hochman
Mark Kopytman
Matti Kovler
Betty Olivero
Shulamit Ran
Leon Schidlowsky
Noam Sheriff
Gil Shohat
Josef Tal
Yitzhak Yedid
Classical musicians
Moshe Atzmon – conductor
Daniel Barenboim – conductor and pianist
Rami Bar-Niv – pianist and composer
Bart Berman – pianist
Gary Bertini – conductor
Natan Brand – pianist
Yefim Bronfman – pianist
Ammiel Bushakevitz – pianist
Giora Feidman – clarinetist
Ivry Gitlis – violinist
Matt Haimovitz – cellist
Alice Herz-Sommer – pianist
Ofra Harnoy – cellist
Eliahu Inbal – conductor
Sharon Kam – clarinetist
Amir Katz – pianist
Evgeny Kissin – pianist
Yoel Levi – conductor
Mischa Maisky – cellist
Shlomo Mintz – violinist
Itzhak Perlman – violinist
Inbal Segev – cellist
Gil Shaham – violinist
Hagai Shaham – violinist
Michael Shani – conductor
Edna Stern – pianist
Yoav Talmi – conductor
Arie Vardi – pianist
Maxim Vengerov – violinist, violist, and conductor
Ilana Vered – pianist
Pinchas Zukerman – violinist
Popular musicians
Chava Alberstein – singer/songwriter
Etti Ankri – singer/songwriter
Yardena Arazi – singer and TV host
Shlomo Artzi – singer/songwriter
Ehud Banai – singer/songwriter
Abatte Barihun – jazz saxophonist and composer
Eef Barzelay – founder of Clem Snide
Netta Barzilai – singer
Miri Ben-Ari – jazz and hip hop violinist
Mosh Ben-Ari – singer/songwriter
Borgore – electronic dance music producer and DJ
Mike Brant – French-language singer
David Broza – singer/songwriter
Matti Caspi – singer, multi-instrumentalist and composer
Avishai Cohen – jazz bassist
David D'Or – singer/songwriter
Arkadi Duchin – singer/songwriter, musical producer
Arik Einstein – singer, actor, writer
Gad Elbaz – singer
Ethnix – pop-rock band
Rita Yahan-Farouz – singer, actress
Uri Frost – rock guitarist, producer and director
Aviv Geffen – singer/songwriter
Eyal Golan – singer
Gidi Gov – singer
Dedi Graucher – Orthodox Jewish singer
Shlomo Gronich – singer and composer
Nadav Guedj – singer
Sarit Hadad – Mizrahi singer
Victoria Hanna – singer/songwriter
Ofra Haza – singer
Dana International – pop singer
Ishtar – vocalist for Alabina
Rami Kleinstein – singer/songwriter, composer
Ehud Manor – songwriter and translator
Amal Murkus – singer
Infected Mushroom – musical duo
Yael Naïm – solo singer/musician
Ahinoam Nini (Noa) – singer
Esther Ofarim – singer
Yehuda Poliker – singer
Ester Rada – singer
Idan Raichel – Ethiopian and Israeli music
Yoni Rechter – composer and arranger
Berry Sakharof – singer
Naomi Shemer – songwriter
Gene Simmons (real name Chaim Weitz) – lead member of KISS
Hillel Slovak – original guitarist for Red Hot Chili Peppers
Pe'er Tasi – singer/songwriter
Ninet Tayeb – pop rock singer and actress
Hagit Yaso – singer
Rika Zaraï – singer
Nir Zidkyahu – drummer, briefly in Genesis
Zino and Tommy – popular duo, songs in U.S. films
Eden Ben Zaken – singer
Noa Kirel – singer and actress
News anchors
Yonit Levi
Haim Yavin
Miki Haimovich
Ya'akov Eilon
Yigal Ravid
Ya'akov Ahimeir
Poets
Nathan Alterman
Yehuda Amichai
Sivan Beskin
Erez Biton
Leah Goldberg
Uri Zvi Greenberg
Vaan Nguyen
Dahlia Ravikovich
Naomi Shemer – songwriter and lyricist
Avraham Shlonsky
Avraham Stern
Abraham Sutzkever
Yona Wallach
Nathan Zach
Zelda
Writers
Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Shmuel Yosef Halevi Czaczkes) – author, Nobel Prize in Literature (1966)
Aharon Appelfeld – Prix Médicis étranger (2004)
Yoni Ben-Menachem – journalist
Ron Ben-Yishai – journalist
Nahum Benari – author and playwright
Max Brod – author, composer and friend of Kafka
Orly Castel-Bloom – author
Yehonatan Geffen – author, poet and lyricist
David Grossman – author
Batya Gur – author
Emile Habibi – author
Amira Hass – journalist and author
Shmuel Katz – author and journalist
Etgar Keret – author
Adi Keissar – poet
Ephraim Kishon – satirist
Hanoch Levin – playwright
Julius Margolin – writer
Aharon Megged – author
Sami Michael – author
Samir Naqqash – author
Uri Orlev – author, Hans Christian Andersen Award (1996)
Amos Oz (Amos Klausner) – author and journalist, Goethe Prize (2005)
Ruchoma Shain – author
Meir Shalev – author and journalist
Zeruya Shalev – author
Moshe Shamir – author, poet
Mati Shemoelof – poet, editor and journalist
Chaim Walder – Haredi children's writer
A.B. Yehoshua – author
Benny Ziffer – author, journalist and translator
Entrepreneurs
Tech
Beny Alagem – founder of Packard Bell
Moshe Bar – founder of XenSource, Qumranet
Safra Catz – president of Oracle
Yossi Gross – recipient of almost 600 patents, founder of 27 medical technology companies in Israel and the Chief Technology Office officer of Rainbow Medical.
Itzik Kotler – founder and CTO of SafeBreach, Information Security Specialist
Daniel M. Lewin – founder of Akamai Technologies
Shai Reshef – educational entrepreneur, founder and president of University of the People
Bob Rosenschein – founder of GuruNet, Answers.com (Israeli-based)
Gil Schwed – founder of Check Point
Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans – founders of Zend Technologies (developers of PHP)
Arik and Yossi Vardi, Yair Goldfinger, Sefi Vigiser and Amnon Amir – founders of Mirabilis (developers of ICQ)
Zohar Zisapel – co-founder of the RAD Group
Iftach Ian Amit – co-founder of BeeFence, prominent Hacker and Information Security Practitioner
Other
Isaac Perlmutter – chairman and former CEO of Marvel Entertainment
Ted, Micky and Shari Arison – founder/owners of Carnival Corporation
Yossi Dina – pawnbroker
Dan Gertler – diamond tycoon
Alec Gores – Israeli-American businessman and investor.
Eli Hurvitz – head of Teva Pharmaceuticals
Lev Leviev – diamond tycoon
Mordecai Meirowitz – inventor of the Mastermind board game
Aviad Meitar
Dorrit Moussaieff – Israeli-British businesswoman, entrepreneur, philanthropist and the First Lady of Iceland
Sammy Ofer – shipping magnate
Guy Oseary – head of Maverick Records, manager of Madonna
Guy Spier – author and investor
Beny Steinmetz – diamond tycoon
Stef Wertheimer – industrialist
Fashion models
Neta Alchimister (female)
Moran Atias (female)
Sendi Bar (female)
Nina Brosh (female)
Chava Mond (female)
Pnina Rosenblum (female) – Knesset parliament member for Likud (2005–2006)
Orly Levy-Abekasis (female) – Knesset parliament member for Likud (2009–) & minister (2020–2021)
Noa Tishby (female)
Tami Ben-Ami (female)
Sharon Ganish (female)
Maayan Keret (female)
Michaela Bercu (female)
Esti Ginzburg (female)
Yael Shelbia (female)
Shlomit Malka (female)
Tahounia Rubel (female)
Yityish Titi Aynaw (female) – Miss Israel 2013
Shani Hazan (female) – Miss Israel 2012 at both Miss World 2012 and Miss International 2014
Raz Meirman (male)
Michael Lewis (male)
Agam Rudberg (female)
Bar Refaeli (female)
Yael Goldman (female)
Odeya Rush (female)
Gal Gadot (female) – Miss Israel 2004
Avigail Alfatov (female) – Na'art Israel (Miss Israel's runner-up) at Miss Universe 2015
Miri Bohadana (female) – Na'art Israel (Miss Israel's runner-up)at Miss World 1995
Anat Zamir (female) – Na'art Israel (Miss Israel's runner-up) at Miss World 1980
Adi Himelbloy (female)
Linor Abargil (female) – Miss Israel & Miss World 1998
Rina Mor (female) – Miss Israel & Miss Universe 1976
Military
Ron Arad – MIA navigator
Gabi Ashkenazi – Chief of the IDF General Staff
Yohai Ben-Nun – sixth commander of the Israeli Navy
Elihu Ben-Onn – Brigadier General, spokesman of the Israel Police
Eli Cohen – spy
Moshe Dayan – military leader
Rafael Eitan – Chief of the IDF General Staff
Gadi Eizenkot – Chief of the IDF General Staff
David Elazar – Chief of the IDF General Staff
Giora Epstein – combat pilot, modern-day "ace of aces"
Hoshea Friedman – brigadier general in the IDF
Uziel Gal – designer of the Uzi submachine gun
Benny Gantz – Chief of the IDF General Staff
Dan Halutz – Chief of the IDF General Staff
Wolfgang Lotz – spy
Tzvi Malkhin – Mossad agent, captured Adolf Eichmann
Eli Marom, former commander of the Israeli Navy
Yonatan Netanyahu – Sayeret Matkal commando, leader of Operation Entebbe
Ilan Ramon – astronaut on Columbia flight STS-107
Gilad Shalit – kidnapped soldier held in Gaza, released in 2011
Avraham Stern – underground military leader
Yoel Strick – general
Israel Tal – general, father of Merkava tank
Moshe Ya'alon – Chief of the IDF General Staff
Yigael Yadin – Chief of the IDF General Staff
Politicians
Golda Meir – female Prime Minister of Israel (1969–74)
Benjamin Netanyahu – prime minister of Israel (1996–99), (2009–); right-wing Likud party chairman
Naftali Bennett – prime minister of Israel (2021–), leader of The Jewish Home party, minister of economy and minister of religious services (2013–present)
Ehud Barak – prime minister (1999–2001)
Menachem Begin – prime minister (1977–83); Nobel Peace Prize (1978)
David Ben-Gurion – first Prime Minister of Israel (1948–54, 1955–63)
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi – first elected/second president President of Israel (1952–63)
Ehud Olmert – prime minister (2006–09); former mayor of Jerusalem
Yossi Beilin – leader of the Meretz-Yachad party and peace negotiator
Geula Cohen – politician, activist and "Israel Prize" recipient
Abba Eban – diplomat and Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel (1966–74)
Yuli-Yoel Edelstein – speaker of the Knesset
Uzi Eilam – ex-director of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission
Effie Eitam – former leader of the National Religious Party, now head of the Renewed Religious National Zionist party
Levi Eshkol – prime minister (1963–69)
Chaim Herzog – former president of Israel, first and only Irish-born Israeli President
Moshe Katsav – president (2000–07), and convicted rapist
Teddy Kollek – former mayor of Jerusalem
Yair Lapid – leader of the Yesh Atid party, minister of finance (2013–March 2015) & minister of foreign affairs
Yosef Lapid – former leader of the Shinui party
Amir Ohana – first openly gay right-wing (Likud) member of the Knesset & former minister of justice
Shimon Peres – President of Israel (2007–2014); prime minister (1984–86, 1995–96); Nobel Peace Prize (1994)
Yitzhak Rabin – prime minister (1974–77, 1992–95); Nobel Peace Prize (1994) (assassinated November 1995)
Reuven Rivlin – President of Israel
Ayelet Shaked – Knesset parliament right-wing member (2013–) & minister (2015–)
Yitzhak Shamir – prime minister (1983–84, 1986–92)
Yisrael Yeshayahu Sharabi – former speaker of the Knesset
Moshe Sharett – prime minister (1954–55)
Ariel Sharon – prime minister (2001–06)
Chaim Weizmann – first President of Israel (1949–52)
Ovadia Yosef – spiritual leader of the Shas party
Rehavam Zeevi – founder of the Moledet party, Knesset parliament member & minister (assassinated by Palestinians in October 2001)
Meirav Cohen – minister for social equality & Knesset parliament member (2019–)
Criminals
Yigal Amir – assassin of left-wing prime minister Yitzhak Rabin
Baruch Goldstein – murderer
Ami Popper – murderer
Eden-Nathan Zada – murderer
Religious figures
Haredi Rabbis
Yaakov Aryeh Alter Gerrer – Rebbe
Shlomo Zalman Auerbach
Yaakov Blau
Yisroel Moshe Dushinsky – Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem (Edah HaChareidis)
Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky – Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem (Edah HaChareidis)
Yosef Sholom Eliashiv
Mordechai Eliyahu – Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel 1983–93, (1929–2010)
Chaim Kanievsky
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Dov Landau – rosh yeshiva of Slabodka yeshiva of Bnei Brak
Yissachar Dov Rokeach – the fifth Belzer rebbe
Yitzchok Scheiner – rosh yeshiva of Kamenitz yeshiva of Jerusalem
Elazar Menachem Shach, Rav Shach – (1899–2001)
Moshe Shmuel Shapira – rosh yeshiva of Beer Yaakov
Dovid Shmidel – Chairman of Asra Kadisha
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Amram Zaks – rosh yeshiva of the Slabodka yeshiva of Bnei Brak
Ovadia Yosef
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Israel Meir Lau – Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel (1993–2003), Chief Rabbi of Netanya (1978–88), (1937–)
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References
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422111 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation%20Flavius | Operation Flavius | Operation Flavius (also referred to as the Gibraltar killings) was a military operation in which three members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) were controversially shot dead by the British Special Air Service (SAS) in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988. The trio were believed to be planning a car bomb attack on British military personnel in Gibraltar. They were shot dead while leaving the territory, having parked a car. All three were found to be unarmed, and no bomb was discovered in the car, leading to accusations that the British government had conspired to murder them. An inquest in Gibraltar ruled that the authorities had acted lawfully but the European Court of Human Rights held that, although there had been no conspiracy, the planning and control of the operation was so flawed as to make the use of lethal force almost inevitable. The deaths were the first in a chain of violent events in a fourteen-day period. On 16 March, the funeral of the three IRA members was attacked, leaving three mourners dead. At the funeral of one, two British soldiers were killed after driving into the procession in error.
In late 1987, British authorities became aware of an IRA plan to detonate a bomb outside the governor's residence in Gibraltar. On the day of the shootings, known IRA member Seán Savage was seen parking a car near the assembly area for the parade; fellow members Daniel McCann and Mairéad Farrell were seen crossing the border shortly afterwards. As SAS personnel moved to intercept the three, Savage split from McCann and Farrell and ran south. Two soldiers pursued Savage while two others approached McCann and Farrell. The soldiers reported seeing the IRA members make threatening movements when challenged, so the soldiers shot them multiple times. All three were found to be unarmed, and Savage's car did not contain a bomb, though a second car, containing explosives, was later found in Spain. Two months after the shootings, the documentary "Death on the Rock" was broadcast on British television. Using reconstructions and eyewitness accounts, it presented the possibility that the three IRA members had been unlawfully killed.
The inquest into the deaths began in September 1988. The authorities stated that the IRA team had been tracked to Málaga, where they were lost by the Spanish police, and that the three did not re-emerge until Savage was seen parking his car in Gibraltar. The soldiers testified that they believed the suspected bombers had been reaching for weapons or a remote detonator. Several eyewitnesses recalled seeing the three shot without warning, with their hands up, or while they were on the ground. One witness, who told "Death on the Rock" he saw a soldier fire at Savage repeatedly while he was on the ground, retracted his statement at the inquest, prompting an inquiry into the programme which largely vindicated it. The inquest returned a verdict of lawful killing. Dissatisfied, the families took the case to the European Court of Human Rights. Delivering its judgement in 1995, the court found that the operation had been in violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights as the authorities' failure to arrest the suspects at the border, combined with the information given to the soldiers, rendered the use of lethal force almost inevitable. The decision is cited as a landmark case in the use of force by the state.
Background
The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) aimed to establish a united Ireland and end the British administration of Northern Ireland through the use of force. The organisation was the result of a 1969 split in the Irish Republican Army; the other group, the Official IRA, ceased paramilitary activity in the 1970s. The IRA killed civilians, members of the armed forces, police, judiciary and prison service, including off-duty and retired members, and bombed businesses and military targets in both Northern Ireland and England, with the aim of making Northern Ireland ungovernable. Daniel McCann, Seán Savage, and Mairéad Farrell were, according to the journalist Brendan O'Brien, "three of the IRA's most senior activists". Savage was an explosives expert and McCann was "a high-ranking intelligence operative"; both McCann and Farrell had previously served prison sentences for offences relating to explosives.
The Special Air Service is part of the United Kingdom's special forces. The SAS was first assigned to operations in Northern Ireland in the early stages of the British Army's deployment there, but were confined to South Armagh. More widespread deployment of the SAS began in 1976, when D Squadron was committed. The SAS specialised in covert, intelligence-based operations against the IRA, using more aggressive tactics than regular army and police units.
Build-up
From late 1987, the British authorities were aware that the IRA was planning an attack in Gibraltar. The intelligence appeared to be confirmed in November 1987, when several known IRA members were detected travelling from Belfast to Spain under false identities. MI5—the British Security Service—and the Spanish authorities became aware that an IRA active service unit (ASU) was operating from the Costa del Sol and the members of the unit were placed under surveillance. After a known IRA member was sighted at the changing of the guard ceremony at the Convent (the governor's residence) in Gibraltar, the authorities suspected that the IRA was planning to attack the British soldiers with a car bomb as they assembled for the ceremony in a nearby car park. In an attempt to confirm the IRA's intended target, the government of Gibraltar suspended the ceremony in December 1987, citing a need to repaint the guardhouse. They believed their suspicions were confirmed when the IRA member re-appeared at the ceremony in February 1988.
In the following weeks, Savage, McCann, and Farrell travelled to Málaga ( along the coast from Gibraltar), where they each rented a car. Their activities were monitored and by early March, the British authorities were convinced that an IRA attack was imminent; a team from the SAS was despatched to the territory, apparently with the personal approval of the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Before the operation, the SAS practised arrest techniques, while the Gibraltar authorities searched for a suitable place to hold the would-be bombers after their arrest. The plan was that the SAS would assist the Gibraltar Police in arresting the IRA members—identified by MI5 officers who had been in Gibraltar for several weeks—if they were seen parking a car in Gibraltar and then attempting to leave the territory.
Events of 6 March
According to the official account of the operation, Savage entered Gibraltar undetected at 12:45 (CET; UTC+1) on 6 March 1988 in a white Renault 5. An MI5 officer recognised him and he was followed, but he was not positively identified for almost an hour and a half, during which time he parked the vehicle in the car park used as the assembly area for the changing of the guard. At 14:30, McCann and Farrell were observed crossing the frontier from Spain and were also followed. They met Savage in the car park at around 14:50 and a few minutes later the three began walking through the town. After the three left the car park, "Soldier G", a bomb-disposal officer, examined Savage's car and reported that the vehicle should be treated as a possible car bomb. Soldier G's suspicion was conveyed as certainty to four SAS troopers, Soldiers "A", "B", "C", and "D". Gibraltar Police Commissioner Joseph Canepa handed control of the operation to "Soldier F", the senior SAS officer, at 15:40. Two minutes later, the SAS moved to intercept the IRA operatives as they walked north on Winston Churchill Avenue towards the Spanish border. As the soldiers approached, the suspects appeared to realise that they were being followed. Savage split from the group and began heading south, brushing against "Soldier A" as he did so; "A" and "B" stayed with McCann and Farrell and Soldiers "C" and "D" followed Savage.
At the same time as the police handed control over to the SAS, they began making arrangements for the IRA members once they were in custody, including finding a police vehicle in which to transport the prisoners. A patrol car containing Inspector Luis Revagliatte and three other uniformed officers, apparently on routine patrol and with no knowledge of Operation Flavius, was ordered to return to police headquarters as a matter of urgency. The police car was stuck in heavy traffic travelling north on Smith Dorrien Avenue, close to the roundabout where it meets Winston Churchill Avenue. The official account states that at this point, Revagliatte's driver activated the siren on the police car to expedite the journey, intending to approach the roundabout from the wrong side of the road and turn the vehicle around. The siren apparently startled McCann and Farrell, just as Soldiers "A" and "B" were about to challenge them, outside the petrol station on Winston Churchill Avenue.
"Soldier A" stated at the inquest that Farrell looked back at him and appeared to realise who "A" was; "A" testified that he was drawing his pistol and intended to shout a challenge to her, but "events overtook the warning": that McCann's right arm "moved aggressively across the front of his body", leading "A" to believe that McCann was reaching for a remote detonator. "A" shot McCann once in the back; he told the inquest he believed Farrell then reached for her handbag, and that he believed Farrell may also have been reaching for a remote detonator. He shot Farrell once in the back, before returning to McCann—he shot McCann a further three times (once in the body and twice in the head). "Soldier B" testified that he reached similar conclusions to "A", and shot Farrell twice, then McCann once or twice, then returned to Farrell, shooting her a further three times. Soldiers "C" and "D" testified at the inquest that they were moving to apprehend Savage, who was by now south of the petrol station, as gunfire began behind them. "Soldier C" testified that Savage turned around while simultaneously reaching towards his jacket pocket at the same time as "C" shouted "Stop!"; "C" stated that he believed Savage was reaching for a remote detonator and so opened fire. "C" shot Savage six times, while "Soldier D" fired nine times. All three IRA members died. One of the soldiers' bullets, believed to have passed through Farrell, grazed a passer-by.
Immediately after the shootings, the soldiers donned berets to identify themselves. Gibraltar Police officers, including Inspector Revagliatte and his men, began to arrive at the scene almost immediately. At 16:05, 25 minutes after assuming control, the SAS commander handed control of the operation back to the Gibraltar Police in a document stating: "A military assault force completed the military option in respect of the terrorist ASU in Gibraltar and returns control to the civil power." Soldiers and police officers evacuated buildings in the vicinity of the Convent and bomb-disposal experts were brought in. Four hours later, the authorities announced that a car bomb had been defused. The SAS personnel left Gibraltar by military aircraft the same day.
When the bodies were searched, a set of car keys was found on Farrell. Spanish and British authorities conducted enquiries to trace the vehicle, which—two days after the shootings—led them to a red Ford Fiesta in a car park in Marbella ( from Gibraltar). The car contained a large quantity of Semtex surrounded by 200 rounds of ammunition, along with four detonators and two timers.
Reaction
Within minutes, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a press release that "a suspected car bomb has been found in Gibraltar, and three suspects have been shot dead by the civilian police". That evening, both the BBC and ITN reported that the IRA team had been involved in a "shootout" with the authorities. The following morning, BBC Radio 4 reported that the alleged bomb was "packed with bits of metal and shrapnel", and later carried a statement from Ian Stewart, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, that "military personnel were involved. A car bomb was found, which has been defused". All eleven British daily newspapers reported the alleged finding of the car bomb, of which eight quoted its size as . The IRA issued a statement later on 7 March to the effect that McCann, Savage, and Farrell were "on active service" in Gibraltar and had "access to and control over " of Semtex.
According to one case study of the incident, it "provide[d] an opportunity to examine the ideological functioning of the news media within [the Troubles]". The British broadsheet newspapers all exhibited what the authors called "ideological closure" by marginalising the IRA and extolling the SAS. Several papers focused on the size of the alleged bomb and the devastation it could have caused without questioning the government's version of events. At 15:30 (GMT) on 7 March, the foreign secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, made a statement to the House of Commons:
Shortly before 1:00 p.m. yesterday, afternoon [Savage] brought a white Renault car into Gibraltar and was seen to park it in the area where the guard mounting ceremony assembles. Before leaving the car, he was seen to spend some time making adjustments in the vehicle
An hour and a half later, [McCann and Farrell] were seen to enter Gibraltar on foot and shortly before 3:00 p.m., joined [Savage] in the town. Their presence and actions near the parked Renault car gave rise to strong suspicions that it contained a bomb, which appeared to be corroborated by a rapid technical examination of the car.
About 3:30 p.m., all three left the scene and started to walk back towards the border. On their way to the border, they were challenged by the security forces. When challenged, they made movements which led the military personnel, operating in support of the Gibraltar Police, to conclude that their own lives and the lives of others were under threat. In light of this response, they [the IRA members] were shot. Those killed were subsequently found not to have been carrying arms.
The parked Renault car was subsequently dealt with by a military bomb-disposal team. It has now been established that it did not contain an explosive device.
Press coverage in the following days, after Howe's statement that no bomb had been found, continued to focus on the act planned by the IRA; several newspapers reported a search for a fourth member of the team. Reports of the discovery of the bomb in Marbella appeared to vindicate the government's version of events and justify the killings. Several MPs made statements critical of the operation, while a group of Labour MPs tabled a condemnatory motion.
Aftermath
The IRA notified the McCann, Savage, and Farrell families of the deaths on the evening of 6 March, and the following day publicly announced that the three were members of the IRA. A senior member of Sinn Féin, Joe Austin, was tasked with recovering the bodies. On 9 March, he and Terence Farrell (Mairéad Farrell's brother) travelled to Gibraltar to identify the bodies. Austin negotiated a charter aircraft to collect the corpses from Gibraltar and fly them to Dublin on 14 March. In 2017 it emerged that Charles Haughey had secretly requested that the Royal Air Force fly the bodies direct to Belfast, bypassing the Republic of which he was Taoiseach. Two thousand people waited to meet the coffins in Dublin, which were then driven north to Belfast. At the border, the Northern Irish authorities met the procession with a large number of police and military vehicles, and insisted on intervals between the hearses, causing tensions between police and members of the procession and leading to accusations that the police rammed Savage's hearse.
The animosity continued until the procession split to allow the hearses to travel to the respective family homes. British soldiers and police flooded the neighbourhoods to try to prevent public displays of sympathy for the dead. Later that evening, a local IRA member, Kevin McCracken, was shot and allegedly then beaten to death by a group of soldiers he had been attempting to shoot at.
The joint funeral of McCann, Farrell and Savage took place on 16 March at Milltown Cemetery in Belfast. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) agreed to maintain a minimal presence at the funeral in exchange for guarantees from the families that there would be no salute by masked gunmen. This agreement was leaked to Michael Stone, who described himself as a "freelance Loyalist paramilitary". During the burial, Stone threw grenades into the crowd and began shooting with an automatic pistol, injuring 60 people. Several mourners chased Stone, throwing rocks and shouting abuse. Stone continued shooting and throwing grenades at his pursuers, killing three of them. He was eventually captured after being chased onto a road and the pursuers beat him until the RUC arrived to extract and arrest him.
The funeral of Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh (Kevin Brady), the third and last of the Milltown attack victims to be buried, was scheduled for 19 March. As his cortège proceeded along Andersontown Road, a car driven by two undercover British Army corporals, David Howes and Derek Wood, sped past stewards and drove into the path of the cortège. The corporals attempted to reverse, but were blocked in and a hostile crowd surrounded their car. As members of the crowd began to break into the vehicle, one of the corporals drew and fired a pistol, which momentarily subdued the crowd, before both men were dragged from the car, beaten and disarmed. A local priest intervened to stop the beating, but was pulled away when a military identity card was found, raising speculation that the corporals were SAS members. The two were bundled into a taxi, driven to waste ground by IRA members and beaten further. Six men were seen leaving the vehicle. Another IRA man arrived with a pistol taken from one of the soldiers, with which he repeatedly shot the corporals before handing the weapon to another man, who shot the corporals' bodies multiple times. Margaret Thatcher described the corporals' killings as the "single most horrifying event in Northern Ireland" during her premiership.
The corporals' shootings sparked the largest criminal investigation in Northern Ireland's history, which created fresh tension in Belfast as republicans saw what they believed was a disparity in the efforts the RUC expended in investigating the corporals' murders compared with those of republican civilians. Over four years, more than 200 people were arrested in connection with the killings, of whom 41 were charged with a variety of offences. The first of the so-named Casement Trials concluded quickly; two men were found guilty of murder and given life sentences in the face of overwhelming evidence. Of the trials that followed, many proved much more controversial.
"Death on the Rock"
On 28 April 1988, almost two months after the Gibraltar shootings, ITV broadcast an episode of its current affairs series This Week, titled "Death on the Rock". This Week sent three journalists to investigate the circumstances surrounding the shootings in Spain and Gibraltar. Using eyewitness accounts, and with the cooperation of the Spanish authorities, the documentary reconstructed the events leading up to the shootings; the Spanish police assisted in the reconstruction of the surveillance operation mounted against the IRA members in the weeks before 6 March, and the journalists hired a helicopter to film the route. In Gibraltar, they located several new eyewitnesses to the shootings, who each said they had seen McCann, Savage, and Farrell shot without warning or shot after they had fallen to the ground; most agreed to be filmed and provided signed statements. One witness, Kenneth Asquez, provided two near-identical statements through intermediaries, but refused to meet with the journalists or sign either statement. The journalists eventually incorporated his account of seeing Savage shot while on the ground into the programme.
For technical advice, the journalists engaged Lieutenant Colonel George Styles, a retired British Army officer who was regarded as an expert in explosives and ballistics. Styles believed that it would have been obvious to the authorities that Savage's car did not contain a bomb as the weight would have been evident on the vehicle's springs; he also believed that a remote detonator could not have reached the car park from the scenes of the shootings given the number of buildings and other obstacles between the locations. The government refused to comment on the shootings until the inquest, so the documentary concluded by putting its evidence to a leading human rights lawyer, who opined that a judicial inquiry was necessary to establish the facts surrounding the shootings.
Two days before the programme was scheduled for broadcast, Sir Geoffrey Howe telephoned the chairman of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) to request that the authority delay the broadcast until after the inquest on the grounds that it risked prejudicing the proceedings. After viewing the programme and taking legal advice, the IBA decided on the morning of 28 April that "Death on the Rock" should be broadcast as scheduled. Howe made further representation that the documentary would be in contempt of the inquest, but the IBA upheld its decision.
The programme was broadcast at 9pm on 28 April and attracted considerable controversy. The following morning, the British tabloid newspapers lambasted the programme, describing it as a "slur" on the SAS and "trial by television"; several criticised the IBA for allowing the documentary to be broadcast. Over the following weeks, newspapers repeatedly printed stories about the documentary's witnesses, in particular Carmen Proetta, who reported seeing McCann and Farrell shot without warning by soldiers who arrived in a Gibraltar Police car. Proetta sued several newspapers for libel and won substantial damages. The Sunday Times conducted its own investigation and reported that "Death on the Rock" had misrepresented the views of its witnesses; those involved later complained to other newspapers that The Sunday Times had distorted their comments.
Inquest
Unusually for Gibraltar, there was a long delay between the shootings and the setting of a date for the inquest (the usual method for investigating sudden or controversial deaths in parts of the United Kingdom and its territories); eight weeks after the shootings, the coroner, Felix Pizzarello, announced that the inquest would begin on 27 June 1988. Two weeks later (unknown to Pizzarello), Margaret Thatcher's press secretary announced that the inquest had been indefinitely postponed.
The inquest began on 6 September. Pizzarello presided over the proceedings, while eleven jurors evaluated the evidence; representing the Gibraltar government was Eric Thislewaite, the Gibraltar attorney general. The interested parties were represented by John Laws, QC (for the British government), Michael Hucker (for the SAS personnel), and Patrick McGrory (for the families of McCann, Farrell, and Savage). Inquests are non-adversarial proceedings aimed at investigating the circumstances of a death; the investigation is conducted by the coroner, while the representatives of interested parties can cross-examine witnesses. Where the death occurred through the deliberate action of another person, the jury can return a verdict of "lawful killing", "unlawful killing", or an "open verdict"; though inquests cannot apportion blame, in the case of a verdict of unlawful killing the authorities will consider whether any prosecutions should be brought.
The soldiers and MI5 officers gave their evidence anonymously and from behind a screen. As the inquest began, observers including Amnesty International expressed concern that McGrory was at a disadvantage, as all of the other lawyers were privy to the evidence of the SAS and MI5 personnel before it was given. The cost of the transcript for each day's proceedings was increased ten-fold the day before the inquest began. The inquest heard from 79 witnesses, including police, MI5, and SAS soldiers as well as technical experts and eyewitnesses.
Police, military, and MI5 witnesses
The first witnesses to testify were Gibraltar Police officers. Following them was "Mr O", the senior MI5 officer in charge of Operation Flavius. "O" told the inquest that, in January 1988, Belgian authorities found a car being used by IRA operatives in Brussels. In the car were found a quantity of Semtex, detonators, and equipment for a radio detonation device, which led MI5 to the conclusion that the IRA might use a similar device for the planned attack in Gibraltar. MI5 believed that the IRA had been unlikely to use a "blocking car" (an empty vehicle used to hold a parking space until the bombers bring in the vehicle containing the explosives) as this entailed the added risk of multiple border crossings. "O" told the coroner that McCann, Savage, and Farrell had been observed by Spanish authorities arriving at Málaga Airport but had been lost shortly afterwards and were not detected crossing into Gibraltar.
Canepa told the inquest that (contrary to McGrory's assertions) there had been no conspiracy to kill McCann, Savage, and Farrell. He stated that, upon learning of the IRA plot from MI5, he set up an advisory committee consisting of MI5, military, and police personnel. As events developed, the committee decided that the Gibraltar Police was not adequately equipped to counter the IRA threat, and Canepa requested assistance from London. The commissioner gave assurances that he had been in command of the operation against the IRA at all times, except for the 25 minutes of the military operation. In his cross-examination, McGrory queried the level of control the commissioner had over the operation; he extracted from Canepa that the commissioner had not requested assistance from the SAS specifically. Canepa agreed with "O" that the Spanish police had lost track of the IRA team, and that Savage's arrival in Gibraltar took the authorities by surprise. Although a police officer was stationed in an observation post at the border with instructions for alerting other officers to the arrival of the IRA team, Canepa told the inquest that the officer had been looking for the three IRA members arriving at once. He told McGrory he was "unsure" whether or not the officer had the details of the false passports the trio were travelling under.
The officer from the observation post denied knowing the pseudonyms under which the IRA members were travelling. On cross-examination, he acknowledged having been provided with the pseudonyms at a briefing the night before the shootings. Detective Chief Inspector Joseph Ullger, head of the Gibraltar Police Special Branch, told the coroner that the Spanish border guards had let Savage through out of carelessness, while the regular border officials on the Gibraltar side had not been told to look for the IRA team.
"Soldier F", a British Army colonel who was in command of the SAS detachment, testified next, followed by "Soldier E", a more junior officer who was directly responsible for the soldiers. The inquest then heard from the soldiers involved. The SAS personnel all told the coroner that they had been briefed to expect the would-be bombers to be in possession of a remote detonator, and that they had been told that Savage's car definitely contained a bomb. Each soldier testified that the IRA team made movements which the soldiers believed to be threatening, and this prompted them to open fire. McGrory asked about the SAS's policy on lethal force during cross-examination; he asked "Soldier D" about allegations that Savage was shot while on the ground, something "D" strenuously denied, though he stated that he had intended to continue shooting Savage until he was dead.
Several Gibraltar Police officers gave evidence about the aftermath of the shootings and the subsequent police investigation. Immediately after the shootings, the soldiers' shell casings were removed from the scene (making it difficult to assess where the soldiers were standing when they fired); two Gibraltar Police officers testified to collecting the casings, one for fear that they might be stolen and the other on the orders of a superior. Other witnesses revealed that the Gibraltar Police had lost evidence and that the soldiers did not give statements to the police until over a week after the shootings.
Civilian witnesses
One of the first civilian witnesses was Allen Feraday, the principal scientific officer at the Royal Armaments Research and Development Establishment. He suggested that a remote detonator could reach from the scenes of the shootings to the car park in which Savage had left the white Renault and beyond. On cross-examination, he stated that the aerial on the Renault was not the type he would expect to be used for receiving a detonation signal and that the IRA had not been known to use a remote-detonated bomb without a line of sight to their target. The following day, "Soldier G" told the coroner that he was not an explosives expert, and that his assessment of Savage's car was based on his belief that the vehicle's aerial looked "too new". McGrory called Dr Michael Scott, an expert in radio-controlled detonation, who disagreed with government witnesses that a bomb at the assembly area could have been detonated from the petrol station, having conducted tests prior to testifying. The government responded by commissioning its own tests, which showed that radio communication between the petrol station and the car park was possible, but not guaranteed.
Professor Alan Watson, a British forensic pathologist, carried out a post-mortem examination of the bodies. Watson arrived in Gibraltar the day after the shootings, by which time the bodies had been taken to the Royal Navy Hospital; he found that the bodies had been stripped of their clothing (causing difficulties in distinguishing entry and exit wounds), that the mortuary had no X-ray machine (which would have allowed Watson to track the paths of the bullets through the bodies), and that he was refused access to any other X-ray machine. After the professor returned to his home in Scotland, he was refused access to the results of blood tests and other evidence which had been sent for analysis and was dissatisfied with the photographs taken by the Gibraltar Police photographer who had assisted him. At the inquest, McGrory questioned the lack of assistance given to the pathologist, which Watson told him was "a puzzle".
Watson concluded that McCann had been shot four times—once in the jaw (possibly a ricochet), once in the head, and twice in the back; Farrell was shot five times (twice in the face and three times in the back). Watson was unable to determine exactly how many times Savage was shot—he estimated that it was possibly as many as eighteen times. Watson agreed with McGrory's characterisation that Savage's body was "riddled with bullets", stating "I concur with your word. Like a frenzied attack", a statement which made headlines the following morning. Watson suggested that the deceased were shot while on the ground; a second pathologist called by McGrory offered similar findings. Two weeks later, the court heard from David Pryor—a forensic scientist working for London's Metropolitan Police—who had analysed the IRA members' clothes. His analysis was hampered by the condition of the clothing. Pryor offered evidence which contradicted Soldiers "A" and "B" about their proximity to McCann and Farrell when they opened fire—the soldiers claimed they were at least six feet (1.8 metres) away, but Pryor's analysis was that McCann and Farrell were shot from a distance of no more than two or three feet (0.6 or 0.9 metres).
Several eyewitnesses gave evidence. Three witnessed parts of the shootings and gave accounts which supported the official version of events—in particular, they did not witness the SAS shooting any of the suspects while they were on the floor. Witnesses from "Death on the Rock" also appeared—Stephen Bullock repeated his account of seeing McCann and Savage raise their hands before the SAS shot them; Josie Celecia repeated her account of seeing a soldier shooting at McCann and Farrell while the pair were on the ground. Hucker pointed out that parts of Celecia's testimony had changed since she spoke to "Death on the Rock", and suggested that the gunfire she heard was from the shooting of Savage rather than sustained shooting of McCann and Farrell while they were on the ground, a suggestion Celecia rejected. The SAS's lawyer observed that she was unable to identify the military personnel in photographs her husband had taken. Maxie Proetta told the coroner that he had witnessed four men (three in plain clothes and one uniformed Gibraltar Police officer) arriving opposite the petrol station on Winston Churchill Avenue; the men jumped over the central reservation barrier and Farrell put her hands up, after which he heard a series of shots. In contrast to his wife's testimony, he believed that Farrell's gesture was one of self-defence rather than surrender, and he believed that the shots he heard did not come from the men from the police car. The government lawyers suggested that the police car was driven by Inspector Revagliatte and carrying four uniformed police officers, but Proetta was adamant that the lawyers' version did not make sense. His wife gave evidence the following day. Contrary to her statement to "Death on the Rock", Carmen Proetta was no longer certain that she had seen McCann and Farrell shot while on the ground. The government lawyers questioned the reliability of Proetta's evidence based on her changes, and implied that she behaved suspiciously by giving evidence to "Death on the Rock" before the police. She responded that the police had not spoken to her about the shootings until after "Death on the Rock" had been shown.
Asquez, who provided an unsworn statement to the "Death on the Rock" team through an intermediary, reluctantly appeared. He retracted his statements to "Death on the Rock", which he claimed he had made up after "pestering" from Major Bob Randall (another "Death on the Rock" witness, who had sold the programme a video recording of the aftermath of the shootings). The British media covered Asquez's retraction extensively, while several members of parliament accused Asquez of lying for the television (and "Death on the Rock" of encouraging him) in an attempt to discredit the SAS and the British government. Asquez could not explain why his original statement mentioned the Soldiers "C" and "D" donning berets, showing identity cards, and telling members of the public "it's okay, it's the police" after shooting Savage (details which were not public before the inquest).
Verdict
The inquest concluded on 30 September, and Laws and McGrory made their submissions to the coroner regarding the instructions he should give to the jury (Hucker allowed Laws to speak on his behalf). Laws asked the coroner to instruct the jury not to return a verdict of "unlawful killing" on the grounds that there had been a conspiracy to murder the IRA operatives. He allowed for the possibility that the SAS personnel had individually acted unlawfully. McGrory, on the other hand, asked the coroner to allow for the possibility that the British government had conspired to murder McCann, Savage, and Farrell, which he believed was evidenced by the decision to use the SAS for Operation Flavius. The decision, according to McGrory was
When the coroner asked McGrory to clarify whether he believed there had been a conspiracy to murder the IRA operatives, he responded
Pizzarello then summarised the evidence for the jury and instructed them that they could return a verdict of unlawful killing under any of five circumstances, including if they were satisfied that there had been a conspiracy within the British government to murder the three suspected terrorists. He also urged the jury to return a conclusive verdict, rather than the "ambiguity" of an open verdict, and forbade them to make recommendations or add a rider. By a majority of nine to two, they returned a verdict of lawful killing.
Six weeks after the inquest, a Gibraltar Police operations order was leaked. The document listed Inspector Revagliatte as the commander of two police firearms teams assigned to the operation. In February 1989, British journalists discovered that the IRA team operating in Spain must have contained more members than the three killed in Gibraltar. The staff at the agencies from which the team rented their vehicles gave the Spanish police descriptions which did not match McCann, Savage, or Farrell and Savage's car was rented several hours before he arrived in Spain.
It emerged that the Spanish authorities knew where McCann and Savage were staying. A senior Spanish police officer repeatedly told journalists that the IRA cell had been under surveillance throughout their time in Spain, and that the Spanish told the British authorities that they did not believe that the three were in possession of a bomb on 6 March. Although the Spanish government did not comment, it honoured 22 police officers involved in the operation at a secret awards ceremony in December 1988, and a Spanish government minister told a press conference in March 1989 that "we followed the terrorists. They were completely under our control". The same month, a journalist discovered that the Spanish side of the operation was conducted by the Foreign Intelligence Brigade rather than the local police as the British government had suggested. The Independent and Private Eye conjectured as to the reason for the Spanish government's silence—in 1988, Spain was attempting to join the Western European Union, but was opposed by Britain; the papers' theory was that Margaret Thatcher's government dropped its opposition in exchange for the Spanish government's silence.
Legal proceedings
In March 1990 the McCann, Savage, and Farrell families began proceedings against the British government at the High Court in London. The case was dismissed on the grounds that Gibraltar was outside the court's jurisdiction. The families launched an appeal, but withdrew it in the belief that it had no prospect of success. They then applied to the European Commission of Human Rights for an opinion on whether the authorities' actions in Gibraltar violated Article 2 (the "right to life") of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Issuing its report in April 1993, the commission criticised the conduct of the operation, but found that there had been no violation of Article 2. Nevertheless, the commission referred the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a final decision.
The British government submitted that the killings were "absolutely necessary", within the meaning of Article 2, paragraph 2, to protect the people of Gibraltar from unlawful violence. They stated that the soldiers who carried out the shootings believed that McCann, Savage, and Farrell were capable of detonating a car bomb by remote control. The families alleged that the government had conspired to kill the three; that the planning and control of the operation was flawed; that the inquest was not adequately equipped to investigate the killings; and that the applicable laws of Gibraltar were not compliant with Article 2. The court found that the soldiers' "reflex action" in resorting to lethal force was excessive, but that the soldiers' actions did not, in their own right, give rise to a violation of Article 2. The court held that the soldiers' use of force based on an honestly held belief could be justified, even if that belief was mistaken. To hold otherwise would, in the court's opinion, place too great a burden on law-enforcement personnel. It also dismissed all other allegations, except that regarding the planning and control of the operation. In that respect, the court found that the authorities' failure to arrest the suspects as they crossed the border or earlier, combined with the information that was passed to the soldiers, rendered the use of lethal force almost inevitable. Thus, the court decided there had been a violation of Article 2 in the control of the operation.
As the suspects had been killed while preparing an act of terrorism, the court rejected the families' claims for damages, as well as their claim for expenses incurred at the inquest. The court did order the British government to pay the applicants' costs incurred during the proceedings in Strasbourg. The government initially suggested it would not pay, and there was discussion in parliament of the UK withdrawing from the ECHR. It paid the costs on 24 December 1995, within days of the three-month deadline which had been set by the court.
Long-term impact
A history of the Gibraltar Police described Operation Flavius as "the most controversial and violent event" in the history of the force, while the journalist Nicholas Eckert described the incident as "one of the great controversies of the Troubles" and the academic Richard English posited that the "awful sequence of interwoven deaths" was one of the conflict's "most strikingly memorable and shocking periods". The explosives the IRA intended to use in Gibraltar were believed to have come from Libya, which was known to be supplying arms to the IRA in the 1980s; some sources speculated that Gibraltar was chosen for its relative proximity to Libya, and the targeting of the territory was intended as a gesture of gratitude to Gaddafi.
Several commentators, including Father Raymond Murray, a Catholic priest and author of several books on the Troubles, took the shootings as evidence that the British authorities pursued a "shoot-to-kill" policy against the IRA, and that they intentionally used lethal force in preference to arresting suspected IRA members. Maurice Punch, an academic specialising in policing and civil liberties, described the ECtHR verdict as "a landmark case with important implications" for the control of police operations involving firearms. According to Punch, the significance of the ECtHR judgement was that it placed accountability for the failures in the operation with its commanders, rather than with the soldiers who carried out the shooting. Punch believed that the ruling demonstrated that operations intended to arrest suspects should be conducted by civilian police officers, rather than soldiers. The case is considered a landmark in cases concerning Article 2, particularly in upholding the principle that Article 2, paragraph 2, defines circumstances in which it is permissible to use force which may result in a person's death as an unintended consequence, rather than circumstances in which it is permissible to intentionally deprive a person of their life. It has been cited in later ECtHR cases concerning the use of lethal force by police.
After the inquest verdict, the Governor of Gibraltar, Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Terry declared "Even in this remote place, there is no place for terrorists." In apparent revenge for his role in Operation Flavius, Terry and his wife were shot and seriously injured when the IRA attacked their home in Staffordshire two years later, in September 1990.
Following Asquez's retraction of his statement to "Death on the Rock" and his allegation that he was pressured into giving a false account of the events he witnessed, the IBA contacted Thames Television to express its concern and to raise the possibility of an investigation into the making of the documentary. Thames eventually agreed to commission an independent inquiry (the first such inquiry into an individual programme), to be conducted by two people with no connection to either Thames or the IBA; Thames engaged Lord Windlesham and Richard Rampton, QC to conduct the investigation. In their report, published in January 1989, Windlesham and Rampton levelled several criticisms at "Death on the Rock", but found it to be a "trenchant" piece of work made in "good faith and without ulterior motives". In conclusion, the authors believed that "Death on the Rock" proved "freedom of expression can prevail in the most extensive, and the most immediate, of all the means of mass communication".
See also
Deal barracks bombing, another IRA attack targeting a military band
Police use of firearms in the United Kingdom
Shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland
Notes
References
Bibliography
Citations
1988 in Gibraltar
British Army in Operation Banner
Conflicts in 1988
Deaths by firearm in Gibraltar
March 1988 events in Europe
Military of Gibraltar
Provisional Irish Republican Army actions in continental Europe
Royal Anglian Regiment
Special Air Service operations |
422115 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation%20Frankton | Operation Frankton | Operation Frankton was a commando raid on ships in the German occupied French port of Bordeaux in southwest France during the Second World War. The raid was carried out by a small unit of Royal Marines known as the Royal Marines Boom Patrol Detachment (RMBPD), part of Combined Operations inserted by captained by Lieutenant-Commander Dick Raikes who, earlier, had been awarded the DSO for operations while in command of the submarine .
(The RMBPD would later form the Special Boat Service.)
The plan was for six folding kayaks to be taken to the area of the Gironde estuary by submarine. Twelve men would then paddle by night to Bordeaux. On arrival they would attack the docked cargo ships with limpet mines and then escape overland to Spain. Men from no.1 section were selected for the raid; including the commanding officer, Herbert 'Blondie' Hasler, and with the reserve Marine Colley the team numbered thirteen in total. One kayak was damaged while being deployed from the submarine, and it and its crew therefore could not take part in the mission. Only two of the 10 men who launched from the submarine survived the raid: Hasler, and his number two in the kayak, Bill Sparks. Of the other eight, six were executed by the Germans and two died from hypothermia.
Background
The Royal Marines Boom Patrol Detachment (RMBPD) was formed on 6 July 1942, and based at Southsea, Portsmouth. The RMBPD was under the command of Royal Marines Major Herbert 'Blondie' Hasler with Captain J. D. Stewart as second in command. The detachment consisted of 34 men and was based at Lumps Fort, and often exercised in the Portsmouth Harbour and patrolled the harbour boom at nights. On 13 August 1942, Hasler and Stewart visited HMS Tormentor to attend a demonstration of fast motorboat training, in preparation for the operation.
The Bay of Biscay port of Bordeaux was a major destination for goods to support the German war effort. In the 12 months from June 1941 – 1942 vegetable and animal oils, other raw materials, and 25,000 tons of crude rubber had arrived at the port. Hasler submitted a plan of attack on 21 September 1942. The initial plan called for a force of three kayaks to be transported to the Gironde estuary by submarine then paddle by night and hide by day until they reached Bordeaux from the sea, thus hoping to avoid the 32 mixed Kriegsmarine ships that patrolled or used the port. On arrival they hoped to sink between six and 12 cargo ships then escape overland to Spain.
Permission for the raid was granted on 13 October 1942, but Admiral Louis Mountbatten Chief of Combined operations increased the number of kayaks to be taken to six. Mountbatten had originally ordered that Hasler could not take part in the raid, because of his experience as the chief kayaking specialist, but changed his mind after Hasler (the only man with experience in small boats) formally submitted his reasons for inclusion. The RMBPD started training for the raid on 20 October 1942, which included kayak handling, submarine rehearsals, limpet mine handling and escape and evasion exercises. The RMBPD practised for the raid with a simulated attack against Deptford, starting from Margate and kayaking up the Swale.
Mark II kayaks, which were given the codename of Cockle, were selected for the raid. The Mark II was a semi rigid two-man kayak, with the sides made of canvas, a flat bottom, and in length. When collapsed it had to be capable of negotiating the narrow confines of the submarine to the storage area, and then, before it was ready to be taken on deck, erected and stored ready to be hauled out via the submarine torpedo hatch. During the raid each kayak's load would be two men, eight limpet mines, three sets of paddles, a compass, a depth sounding reel, repair bag, torch, camouflage net, waterproof watch, fishing line, two hand grenades, rations and water for six days, a spanner to activate the mines and a magnet to hold the kayak against the side of cargo ships. The total safe load for the 'Cockle' Mark 2 was . The men also carried a .45 1911 Colt semi-automatic pistol and a Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife.
The men selected to go on the raid were divided into two divisions, each having their own targets.
A Division
Hasler and Marine Bill Sparks in kayak Catfish.
Corporal Albert Laver and Marine William Mills in kayak Crayfish.
Corporal George Sheard and Marine David Moffatt in kayak Conger.
B Division
Lieutenant John Mackinnon and Marine James Conway in kayak Cuttlefish.
Sergeant Samual Wallace and Marine Robert Ewart in kayak Coalfish.
Marine W. A. Ellery and Marine E. Fisher in kayak Cachalot.
A thirteenth man was taken as a reserve, Marine Norman Colley.
Mission
Approach
On 30 November 1942 under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Dick Raikes DSO the Royal Navy submarine sailed from Holy Loch in Scotland with the six kayaks and raiders on board. The submarine was supposed to reach the Gironde estuary and the mission was scheduled to start on 6 December 1942. This was delayed because of bad weather en route and the need to negotiate a minefield. By 7 December 1942 the submarine had reached the Gironde estuary and surfaced some from the mouth of the estuary. Cachalots hull was damaged while being passed out of the submarine hatch, leaving just five kayaks to start the raid. The reserve member of the team, Colley, was not needed, so he remained aboard the submarine with the Cachalot crew Ellery and Fisher.
According to Tuna's log the five remaining kayaks were disembarked at 19:30 hours on 7 December. However sources differ on the start time between 19:36 and 20:22. The plan was for the crews to paddle, resting for five minutes in every hour. The first night, 7/8 December, fighting against strong cross tides and cross winds, Coalfish had disappeared. Further on the surviving crews encountered high waves and Conger capsized and was scuttled, once it became apparent that it would not be possible to bail it out. The crew consisting of Sheard and Moffatt held on to two of the remaining kayaks, which carried them as close to the shore as possible, and they then had to try and swim ashore. They met the missing Coalfish shortly afterwards and continued.
Carrying on with the raid, the remaining kayaks approached a major checkpoint in the river and came upon three German frigates. Lying flat on the kayaks and paddling silently they managed to get by without being discovered but Mackinnon and Conway in Cuttlefish became separated from the other kayaks in the group. After having been set ashore, MacKinnon and Conway managed to evade capture for four days, but they were betrayed and arrested by the Gendarmerie and handed over to the Germans at La Reole hospital southeast of Bordeaux, attempting to make their way to the Spanish border.
On the first night the three remaining kayaks, Catfish, Crayfish and Coalfish, covered in five hours and landed near St Vivien du Medoc. While they were hiding during the day and unknown to the others, Wallace and Ewart in Coalfish had been captured at daybreak near the Pointe de Grave lighthouse where they had come ashore.
By the end of the second night, 8/9 December, the two remaining kayaks Catfish and Crayfish had paddled a further in six hours. The third night, 9/10 December, they paddled and on the fourth night, 10/11 December, because of the strong ebb tide they only managed to cover . The original plan had called for the raid to be carried out on 10 December, but Hasler now changed the plan. Because of the strength of the ebb tide they still had a short distance to paddle, so Hasler ordered they hide for another day and set off to and reach Bordeaux on the night of 11/12 December. After a night's rest, the men spent the day preparing their equipment and limpet mines which were set to detonate at 21:00 hours. Hasler decided that Catfish would cover the western side of the docks and Crayfish the eastern side.
Bordeaux
The two remaining kayaks, Catfish and Crayfish, reached Bordeaux on the fifth night, 11/12 December; the river was flat calm and there was a clear sky. The attack started at 21:00 hours 11 December, Hasler and Sparks in Catfish attacking shipping on the western side of the dock, placed eight limpet mines on four vessels including a Sperrbrecher patrol boat. A sentry on the deck of the Sperrbrecher, apparently spotting something, shone his torch down toward the water, but the camouflaged kayak evaded detection in the darkness. They had planted all their mines and left the harbour with the ebb tide at 00:45 hours. At the same time Laver and Mills in Crayfish had reached the eastern side of the dock without finding any targets, so returned to deal with the ships docked at Bassens. They placed eight limpet mines on two vessels, five on a large cargo ship and three on a small liner.
On their way downriver the two kayaks met by chance on the île Cazeau. They continued down river together until 06:00 hours when they beached their kayaks near St Genes de Blaye and tried to hide them by sinking them. The two crews then set out separately, on foot, for the Spanish border. After two days Laver and Mills were apprehended at Montlieu-la-Garde by the Gendarmerie and handed over to the Germans.
On 10 December, the Germans announced that a sabotage squad had been caught on 8 December near the mouth of the Gironde and "finished off in combat". It was not until January 1943 in the absence of other information that all 10 men on the raid were posted missing, until news arrived of two of them. Later it was confirmed that five ships had been damaged in Bordeaux by mysterious explosions. New research in 2010 revealed that a sixth ship had been damaged even more extensively than any of the other five reported, which were quickly repaired and put back into service.
Hasler and Sparks arrived at the French town of Ruffec, from where they had beached their kayak, on 18 December 1942. They made contact with escape line leader Mary Lindell and her son, Maurice, at the Hotel de la Toque Blanche and were then taken to a local farm. They spent the next 18 days there in hiding. Lindell arranged for them to be guided on foot across the Pyrenees into Spain and safety.
Aftermath
In all six ships were damaged, four of them severely. The German blockade runner Tannenfels listed heavily and soon sank. The rear of the freighter Dresden, whose superstructure and propeller shaft had been severed, sank to the bottom. The cargo ship Alabama was holed by the five limpets and was also severely damaged. The cargo ship Portland was also holed and a fire caused heavy internal damage. Subsequently, the Tannenfels, the Alabama and the Portland with the help of divers, were raised and put in dry dock to undergo major repairs which took several months. It is not known precisely what happened to the Sperrbrecher and the tanker Python but it was possible the limpets may have either fallen off and exploded in the water. Nevertheless for several hours after the first explosion there was chaos and confusion at the two ports, Bassen and Bordeaux.
It was not until 23 February 1943 that Combined Operations Headquarters heard via a secret message sent by Mary Lindell to the War Office that Hasler and Sparks were safe. On 2 April 1943 Hasler arrived back in Britain by air from Gibraltar, having passed through the French Resistance escape organisation. Sparks was sent back by sea and arrived much later.
For their part in the raid Hasler was awarded a Distinguished Service Order and Sparks the Distinguished Service Medal (DSM). Laver and Mills were also recommended for the DSM which at the time could not be awarded posthumously, so instead they were mentioned in despatches.
Wallace and Ewart revealed only certain information during their interrogation, and were executed under the Commando Order, on the night of 11 December, in a sandpit in a wood north of Bordeaux, and not at Chateau Magnol, Blanquefort, as is sometimes claimed. A plaque has been erected on the bullet-marked wall at the Chateau, but the authenticity of the details on the plaque has been questioned; indeed given the evidence of a statement by a German officer who was at the execution it is certain that the chateau has no link with Wallace and Ewart. A small memorial can also be seen at the Pointe de Grave, where they were captured. In March 2011 a €100,000 memorial was unveiled at this same spot. After the Royal Marines were executed by a naval firing squad, the Commander of the Navy Admiral Erich Raeder wrote in the Seekriegsleitung war diary that the executions of the captured Royal Marines were something "new in international law, since the soldiers were wearing uniforms". The American historian Charles Thomas wrote that Raeder's remarks about the executions in the Seekriegsleitung war diary seemed to be some sort of ironic comment, which might have reflected a bad conscience on Raeder's part.
Mackinnon had been admitted to the hospital for treatment for an infected knee. Evidence shows that Laver, Mills, Mackinnon and Conway were not executed in Paris in 1942 but possibly in the same location as Wallace and Ewart under the Commando Order. The exact date of their execution is not known.
Sheard and Moffatt from the capsized Conger were not drowned on the first night but died of hypothermia. The body of Moffatt was found on the Île de Ré on 14 December but Sheard's body is believed to have been recovered and buried elsewhere further up the coastline. Sheard is remembered on the Hero's Stone at his place of birth, North Corner, Devonport.
Memorials
The words of Lord Mountbatten, the commander of Combined Operations, are carved into a Purbeck stone at Royal Marines Poole (current headquarters of the SBS): "Of the many brave and dashing raids carried out by the men of Combined Operations Command none was more courageous or imaginative than Operation Frankton".
Mackinnon is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.
The bravery of the 'Cockleshell Hero' Royal Marine James Conway was honoured with a permanent memorial unveiled on Sunday 10 December 2017 in his home town of Stockport.
Laver, Sheard, Mills, Conway, Wallace, Moffatt, and Ewart are commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial.
In June 2002, the Frankton Trail was opened, a walking path which traces the route taken through occupied France, on foot, by Hasler and Sparks. The Frankton Souvenir is an Anglo-French organisation, set up to keep alive the story of the raid. It plans to develop the trail, and install explanatory plaques at key points.
On 31 March 2011 a memorial to the Cockleshell Heroes and three French individuals was dedicated. Made from Portland Stone it was transported across care of Brittany Ferries. The memorial cost about .
The only known surviving Cockle Mark II kayak from Operation Frankton, Cachalot, together with other original equipment, can be seen at the Combined Military Services Museum, located in Maldon, Essex.
In France :
The memory of the heroes of Operation Frankton is commemorated every year, notably in Bordeaux, Blanquefort, Saint-Georges-de-Didonne and Ruffec.
Commemorative plaques have been placed in the Entre-deux-Mers region in Baigneaux and Cessac. Unfortunately, the one in Cessac, located on the edge of a bicycle path, in view of the Jaubert farmhouse, has been vandalized. In 2011, as part of a project to move the monument to the dead of the 1914-1918 war, the municipality proposes to place a second plaque against the wall of the town hall, at the new location of the commemorations. A monument is also present on the town of Montalivet-les-Bains, facing the sea.
A tramway station on line C of the TBM network, located in the town of Blanquefort, is named Frankton.
Depictions
In 1955 a heavily fictionalised version of the story was depicted in the film The Cockleshell Heroes made by Warwick Films, and starring Anthony Newley, Trevor Howard, Christopher Lee, Victor Maddern, David Lodge and Jose Ferrer who was also the director. The film was a box office hit in 1956 and was quickly followed by the publication of Brigadier C. E. Lucas Phillips' book of the same name. 'Blondie' Hasler had connections with both the film and the book. He hated the title of both and walked away from his role as technical adviser for the former to try and set the matter right in the latter.
On 1 November 2011, a BBC Timewatch television documentary called "The Most Courageous Raid of WWII" was narrated by Paddy Ashdown, a former SBS officer. Ashdown describes Frankton as "a Whitehall cock-up of major proportions" due to a simultaneous mission to sink the ships in Bordeaux, led by Claude de Baissac of the Special Operations Executive, which Hasler's team and Combined Operations knew nothing about because of the secrecy and lack of co-operation among British government agencies. De Baissac was preparing to take explosives onto the ships when he heard the explosions of Hasler's limpet mines. The loss of the opportunity for Hasler and de Baissac to work together to strike a harder blow against the Germans in a combined operation led to the setting up of a Controlling Officer at Whitehall, responsible for avoiding inter-departmental rivalry, duplication or even conflict.
In December 2022 ten former Royal Marines recreated the route of Operation Frankton in the Cockleshell 22 project, to support charities Royal British Legion, the Royal Marines Charity, and Help for Heroes. They paddled over 70 miles in folding kayaks along the Gironde estuary to Bordeaux, where they took part in joint French-British commemoration events. They then made a 100-mile speed march from Blaye to Ruffec, the escape route followed by Major Hasler and Corporal Sparks.
References
Sources
Further reading
C. E. Lucas Phillips. Cockleshell Heroes. William Heinemann, 1956. Pan reprint 2000. .
Robert Lyman. Operation Suicide: The Remarkable Story of the Cockleshell Raid. Quercus, 2013
William Sparks, DSM, with Michael Munn. The Last of the Cockleshell Heroes. Leo Cooper, 1992.
External links
The Cockle Mark II collapsible canoe
Cockle Mark II replica
Operation Frankton reenactment 2010
80th anniversary of Operation Frankton reenactment 2022
Allied Warship Commanders Lieutenant-Commander Dick Raikes DSO https://uboat.net/allies/commanders/2077.html
1942 in France
Battles involving canoes
Code names
Conflicts in 1942
Gironde
History of the Royal Marines
World War II British Commando raids
December 1942 events |
422211 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug%20McGraw | Tug McGraw | Frank Edwin "Tug" McGraw Jr. (August 30, 1944 – January 5, 2004) was an American professional baseball relief pitcher and long-time Major League Baseball (MLB) player, often remembered for coining the phrase "Ya Gotta Believe", which became the rallying cry for the 1973 New York Mets.
McGraw recorded the final out of the 1980 World Series against the Kansas City Royals, striking out Willie Wilson to bring the Philadelphia Phillies their first World Series championship, ending the Phillies' 77-year drought. He was the last active big league player to have played under manager Casey Stengel.
Early life
Frank Edwin "Tug" McGraw Jr. was born August 30, 1944, in Martinez, California, northeast of San Francisco, to Frank Edwin "Big Mac" McGraw, Sr. and Mable McKenna. McGraw got the nickname "Tug" from his mother because of the particularly aggressive way he breast-fed. Frank Sr. was the great-grandson of Irish immigrants. After his divorce in the early 1950s, Frank Sr. moved his three sons to nearby Vallejo, and Tug graduated from St. Vincent Ferrer High School in Vallejo in 1962. He enrolled in Vallejo Junior College and signed with the New York Mets as an amateur free agent on June 12, 1964, upon graduation.
Marine Corps Reserve service
After one season in Major League Baseball with the New York Mets, McGraw reported to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island on September 23, 1965, along with fellow New York Met pitcher Jim Bethke. He was trained as a rifleman on the M14 rifle and M60 machine gun. McGraw later reported to Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, where he (in his own words) became a "trained killer".
For McGraw, one of the most challenging aspects of being in the military was the internal conflict which stirred within him. At the same time that he was finishing his Marine training, his younger brother Dennis was staging anti-war protests at Vallejo J.C., where he was then a student. In a March 5, 1967 New York Times article, McGraw admitted that he and his brother would have arguments over the way the Vietnam War was being conducted. But even he, with his six-year Reserve commitment to the United States Marine Corps looming over him, would admit that he was a "dove when it came to the way [the United States was] conducting the war."
Baseball career
New York Mets
McGraw was used both as a starting pitcher and out of the bullpen in the minors; and, after less than one season in the Mets' farm system at Cocoa Beach, Florida, and Auburn, New York, where he went 6–4 with a 1.64 earned run average in Rookie and class A ball, McGraw made the Mets out of Spring training in 1965 at age 20, without ever having played double- or triple-A ball. Soon after, when asked if he preferred the new AstroTurf on the field at the Houston Astrodome to real grass, he said, "I don't know, I never smoked AstroTurf."
McGraw made the team as a reliever, and was 0–1 with a 3.12 ERA and one save when he made his first major league start on July 28 against the Chicago Cubs in the second game of a double header at Wrigley Field. He lasted just two-thirds of an inning and gave up three earned runs on his way to a 9–0 loss (the Cubs blew the Mets out in the first game as well, 7–2). On August 22, in his second start, also in the second game of a double header, only this time against the St. Louis Cardinals at Shea Stadium, McGraw pitched a complete game to earn his first major league win. He won his next start as well, 5–2 over Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers. It marked the first time the Mets had ever beaten the future Hall of Famer. McGraw remained in the Mets' starting rotation for the remainder of the season, however, failed to log another win, going 2–6 as a starter, and 0–1 in relief.
The Mets used McGraw as a starter again in 1966, and he was 2–9 with a 5.52 ERA in that role. Though he also made four starts with the Mets in 1967, McGraw spent most of the season, and all of 1968 in the minor leagues with the Jacksonville Suns. By the time he returned to the Mets in 1969, manager Gil Hodges had a very capable young pitching rotation that included Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Gary Gentry and had no need for McGraw as a starter until Koosman went down with an injury in May. McGraw went 1–1 with a 5.23 ERA filling in for Koosman.
Koosman returned to the rotation at the end of the month and on May 28, after a five-game losing streak that saw the Mets fall into fourth place in the newly aligned National League East, Koosman and the expansion San Diego Padres' Clay Kirby engaged in a pitchers' duel at Shea. After nine scoreless innings by Kirby and ten by Koosman, the game was turned over to the bullpens for extra innings. The game finally ended after 11 innings when Bud Harrelson hit a single to drive in Cleon Jones. McGraw pitched the 11th inning to earn the win.
This began an 11-game winning streak that brought them into second place, seven games behind the Chicago Cubs. McGraw earned two saves during that stretch, and 12 for the season. His record as a reliever was 8–2 with a 1.47 ERA.
The Cubs had been in first place in the NL East for 156 days of the season, and they seemed likely to win the division when they came to New York City to open a crucial two-game series with the Mets on September 8. The Mets won both games to close within a half game of the Cubs. The following day, the Mets swept a double header from the expansion Montreal Expos. Coupled with a Cubs loss (who had slumped to a 9–17 record in their final 26 games), the Mets moved into first place for the first time ever during the season.
On September 15, the St. Louis Cardinals' Steve Carlton struck out a record 19 Mets in a losing effort, as the Mets defeated the Cards 4–3 at Busch Memorial Stadium on a pair of two-run home runs by Ron Swoboda. McGraw pitched the final three innings without giving up a run to earn the win in this game. On September 24, facing Carlton and the Cardinals, again — only this time at Shea Stadium, the New York Mets clinched the NL East as Donn Clendenon hit two home runs in a 6–0 Mets victory. The Mets won 39 of their last 50 games, and finished the season with 100 wins against 62 losses, eight games over the second place Cubs.
McGraw's first postseason appearance came in game two of the new National League Championship Series (NLCS). After the Atlanta Braves lit up Koosman for six runs in innings, Ron Taylor and McGraw held the Braves scoreless the remainder of the way to secure the Mets' 11–6 victory. He did not appear in any other games during the 1969 postseason.
Although McGraw pitched sparingly in the 1969 post season, he remembered the year quite fondly, saying, "Everything changed for me in 1969, the year we turned out to be goddamned amazing, all right."
"Ya Gotta Believe!"
McGraw emerged as one of the top closers in the National League in the early 1970s, enjoying a career year in 1972. He was 3–3 with a 2.01 ERA and 15 saves at the All-Star break to earn his first All-Star selection. McGraw pitched two innings, striking out four and giving up only one hit to earn the win in the NL's 4–3 come from behind victory. For the season, McGraw went 8–6 with a 1.70 ERA, giving up just 71 hits in 106 innings pitched, and setting a Mets record with 27 saves that lasted until 1984.
Whereas 1973 wasn't as good a year statistically for McGraw, he was valued for the leadership role he assumed for the league champions. The Mets had fallen into last place in the NL East, and had remained there through August 30. McGraw was the winning pitcher for the Mets on August 31 when the Mets emerged from last place with an extra innings victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. The win improved McGraw's record to 2–6 with a 5.05 ERA.
For the remainder of the season, McGraw went 3–0 with a 0.57 ERA and ten saves. The Mets, meanwhile, went 20–8 from that point forward to pull off the stunning division title. At a July 9 team meeting where Mets Board Chairman M. Donald Grant was trying to encourage the team, McGraw shouted the words, "Ya Gotta Believe" which became a popular rallying cry for the Mets. He said the famous phrase when maybe only he believed the Mets could actually get to the World Series. But soon enough, hearing McGraw say it again and again, seeing him do his magic in the ninth, the Mets themselves came to believe. They pulled into first place on September 21 with a 10–2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, and clinched the division crown on the final day of the season with a win over the Cubs. This was the only season between and that the National League East wasn't won by either Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.
McGraw continued his dominant pitching into the postseason, when he pitched five innings over two games in the NLCS against the defending NL champion Cincinnati Reds without giving up a run, and appeared in five of the seven games of the World Series against the defending champion Oakland Athletics. Though he blew the save in game two, he pitched three shutout innings in extra innings to earn the win.
McGraw was traded along with Don Hahn and Dave Schneck from the Mets to the Philadelphia Phillies for Del Unser, John Stearns, and Mac Scarce at the Winter Meetings on December 3, 1974. McGraw had developed shoulder trouble during a season in which he went 6–11 with a 4.15 ERA, and at the time of the trade, it appeared as if the Mets may have been unloading damaged goods. After the trade, he was diagnosed with a simple cyst and after successful surgery to remove it, recovered completely. McGraw left the Mets as the all-time leader in saves, games pitched, and games finished.
Philadelphia Phillies
With the Phillies, he continued his role as a reliable relief pitcher, earning his second career All-Star nod in his first season in Philadelphia, though he did not appear in the game. After finishing second to the Pirates in 1975, McGraw's Phillies won their division crown the next three seasons. They were, however, unable to reach the World Series as they were swept by Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine" in the 1976 NLCS, and fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers the following two seasons.
McGraw was nearly traded along with Bake McBride and Larry Christenson to the Texas Rangers for Sparky Lyle and Johnny Grubb at the 1979 Winter Meetings in Toronto, but the proposed transaction was never executed because a deferred money issue in Lyle's contract went unresolved.
The Phillies were battling back-and-forth for first place with the Montreal Expos in 1980 when the Expos came to Veterans Stadium for a crucial three game set on September 25. The Phillies won two of the three, with McGraw winning the second game, to pull a half game up on Montreal. By the time the Phillies went to Montreal for the final series of the season, the two teams were tied for first place.
The Phillies won the opener, 2–1. McGraw earned the save by striking out five of the six batters he faced. The following day, McGraw entered the game in the ninth inning, with the score tied at four. McGraw pitched three innings, striking out three and only giving up one hit (a tenth-inning lead-off single by Jerry White. It was also one of just two balls to leave the infield once McGraw entered the game). After Mike Schmidt's 11th-inning home run put the Phillies up 6–4, McGraw pitched a 1–2–3 11th inning, striking out Larry Parrish to end the game, and clinch the National League East for the Phillies for the fourth time since joining the club.
For the season, McGraw went 5–4 with a 1.46 ERA, 75 strikeouts and 20 saves. Phillies starter Steve Carlton won the National League Cy Young Award, and slugging third baseman Mike Schmidt was the unanimous NL MVP. McGraw received consideration in balloting for both awards as well, finishing fifth in Cy Young balloting, and 16th for league MVP.
1980 World Champions
McGraw pitched in all five games of the 1980 NLCS against the Houston Astros. The Phillies won the first game 3–1, with McGraw earning the save. The Astros, however, came back in game two with an extra innings victory to send the series to Houston tied at a game apiece.
McGraw entered game three in the eighth inning with a runner on second, and one out. He managed to get out of the inning, and keep the Astros scoreless until the 11th inning, when Joe Morgan led the inning off with a triple. Rafael Landestoy entered the game as a pinch runner for Morgan, and McGraw intentionally walked the next two batters to create a force at any base. The strategy didn't work, as the following batter, Denny Walling, hit a sacrifice fly to Greg Luzinski in left field scoring Landestoy.
The final two games of the series also went into extra innings. He earned a save in game four to even the series, however, blew the save in the fifth and deciding game, allowing it to go into extra innings. Dick Ruthven entered the game in the ninth and pitched two perfect innings. Meanwhile, the Phillies came back with a run in the tenth to proceed to the World Series against the Kansas City Royals.
McGraw appeared in four of the six games of the World Series, striking out ten batters in 7.2 innings. The Phillies swept the first two games in Philadelphia, with McGraw earning the save in game one. The Royals, however, came back to even the series after two games in Kansas City, with McGraw picking up the loss in game three.
McGraw entered game five in the seventh inning with the Phillies behind 3–2. He pitched three scoreless innings, while his team scored two ninth inning runs off Royals closer Dan Quisenberry to head back to Philadelphia with a 3–2 series lead. McGraw entered game six of the World Series in the eighth inning with no outs, and runners on first and second, and the Phillies up, 4–0. He allowed one inherited base runner to score, but managed to get through the inning relatively unscathed. After giving up a walk and two singles to load the bases in the ninth inning, he struck out Willie Wilson, clinching the Phillies' first World Series championship.
The next day, at a victory rally at John F. Kennedy Stadium, McGraw summed it all up for the fans after 97 years of futility for the Phillies franchise:
{{blockquote|All through baseball history, Philadelphia has had to take a back seat to New York City. Well, New York City can take this world championship and stick it! 'CAUSE WE'RE NUMBER ONE!}}
In later years, McGraw expressed remorse toward his comments toward New York. He returned to Shea Stadium on numerous occasions following his retirement, citing his love for the Mets fans.
Final four seasons
McGraw went 2–4 with a 2.66 ERA and ten saves in the strike-shortened 1981 season. The Phillies won the first half season crown, however, lost the 1981 National League Division Series to the Montreal Expos. On March 17, 1981, McGraw wore a dyed green uniform on St. Patrick's Day to a spring training game, though an umpire refused to let him play. McGraw called St. Patrick's Day his favorite holiday. Since 1989, the Phillies have had a tradition of playing in green on St. Patrick's Day.
In 1982, McGraw shifted into more of a set-up man role, with both Ron Reed and Ed Farmer earning more saves than he on the season. Prior to the start of the 1983 season, the Phillies acquired Al Holland from the San Francisco Giants to assume the closer role. Following the 1984 season, McGraw retired at age 40. As a favor to longtime friend Roman Gabriel, he returned to professional baseball for single starts during the 1989 and 1990 minor league seasons with the Class A Gastonia Rangers of the South Atlantic League.
Career stats
Whereas relief pitchers are not given the opportunity to bat frequently, McGraw was allowed to bat leading off the sixth inning of a 6–0 blowout at the hands of the Montreal Expos on September 8, . He rewarded his manager's faith in him by putting the Mets on the board with his only career home run.
McGraw could also throw right-handed and would often loosen up before games by playing right-handed catch with his teammates, leaving fans wondering who that right-hander wearing number 45 was. At the time of his death, McGraw was ranked:
24th on the all-time major league list in games pitched (824)
22nd on the all-time major league list in games finished (541)
4th on the all-time Mets list in games saved (86)
4th on the all-time Mets list in games finished (228)
5th on the all-time Mets list in most games pitched (361)
7th on the all-time Mets list in least hits per nine innings (7.78)
10th on the all-time Mets list in most batters struck out per nine innings (7.02)
1st on the all-time Phillies list in games finished (313)
3rd on the all-time Phillies list in games pitched (500)
4th on the all-time Phillies list in saves (94)
8th on the all-time Phillies list in least hits per nine innings (7.89)
Other work
In the 1980s and 1990s, he was a sports anchor and reporter for Action News on WPVI, the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia. He appeared as himself in a 1999 episode of Everybody Loves Raymond along with several other members of the 1969 New York Mets.
In the mid-1970s, McGraw collaborated with artist Michael Witte on a nationally syndicated comic strip "Scroogie". Scroogie was a relief pitcher for the "Pets", whose teammates included "Tyrone" (a Reggie Jackson-like bopper with a tremendous ego), ace pitcher "Royce Rawls" (loosely based upon former Mets teammate, Tom Seaver), "Chico", a Hispanic shortstop with characteristics similar to Mario Mendoza, and "Homer", an intellectually challenged slugger who could send a ball into orbit. Their announcer, "Herb", wore loud sports coats reminiscent of former Mets announcer Lindsey Nelson, and the team was owned by Millicent Cashman. Actual major league teams and players were used in the comic strip during its two-year run.
McGraw, Witte, David Fisher and Neil Offer produced two books, Scroogie (1976) and Hello there, ball! (1977).
McGraw also recorded a version of the baseball poem "Casey at the Bat", accompanied by Peter Nero and the Philly Pops.
Personal life
McGraw had a brief relationship in 1966 with Betty D'Agostino that resulted in a son, country music singer Tim McGraw. In his book Ya Gotta Believe, McGraw wrote that he and D'Agostino only had sex once, and that she immediately broke off contact with him and left town afterward. At the time, McGraw was playing baseball for Jacksonville, while D'Agostino was a high school student. When she became pregnant, her parents sent D'Agostino to Louisiana to live with relatives.
McGraw did not acknowledge Tim as his son until Tim was 17 years old. Tim McGraw, in an April 19, 2022, interview on NPR's Fresh Air, stated that he met McGraw only twice as a child, both times at baseball games in Houston. The first time, they had a lunch with the elder McGraw telling the younger they could be friends but he could not be a father to him. In a second meeting, Tim said Tug worked out in the bullpen and ignored him. The two later developed a close relationship and apparently McGraw agreed to finance Tim's college education. In addition to Tim, McGraw had a son Mark and daughter Cari with his first wife Phyllis Kline, and a son, Matthew, with his wife Diane Hovenkamp-Robertson; he also had two stepsons, Christopher and Ian Hovenkamp.
Death
On March 12, 2003, McGraw was working as an instructor for the Phillies during spring training when he was hospitalized with a glioblastoma brain tumor. After surgery was performed to remove it, initial reports suggested the procedure had been successful, his chances for recovery were "excellent" and he would live "a long time". However, the tumor was not totally excised by the surgery and the malignancy returned in inoperable form. McGraw lived for over nine months after the initial surgery. In what would be his last public appearance, McGraw attended the closing ceremonies of Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia on September 28, 2003, where he recreated the final out of the Phillies' World Series triumph. McGraw died on January 5, 2004 at the home of his son Tim and his wife Faith Hill in Tennessee. The Mets played the 2004 season with the words "Ya Gotta Believe" embroidered on their left shoulders in McGraw's honor and the Phillies wore a patch on their right shoulder featuring a shamrock in honor of McGraw and a banner reading "Pope" in honor of longtime Phillies executive Paul Owens, who had also died that winter. His son Tim's 2004 hit "Live Like You Were Dying" (written by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman) was recorded in his father's honor and featured the memorable clip of McGraw recording the final out of the 1980 World Series in the music video. The song reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard country music charts and held that position for a total of seven weeks. It was named as the Number One country song of 2004 by Billboard.
McGraw was cremated after his death. Nearly five years later, his son Tim McGraw took a handful of his dad's ashes and spread them on the pitcher's mound at the Phillies current home park, Citizens Bank Park, in Game 3 of the 2008 World Series. The Phillies won the game, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays 5–4, en route to the team's second World Series Championship.
Legacy
The Tug McGraw Foundation was established in 2003 to enhance the quality of life of children and adults with brain tumors and in 2009 expanded programs to include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). TMF collaborates and partners with other organizations to accelerate new treatments and cures to improve quality of life in areas of physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual impact of those debilitating conditions. The Foundation broke ground for its new headquarters in Yountville, California on November 13, 2010.
The Foundation's work includes sponsoring a photography class at Camp Pendleton to help 15 Marines as part of the recovery process from battlefield wounds.
Honors and awards
In 1980, the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association presented its annual Good Guy Award to McGraw.
In 1983—the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Phillies—McGraw was selected as one of only two left-handed pitchers on the Phillies Centennial Team.
In 1993, McGraw was inducted into the New York Mets Hall of Fame.
In 1999, the Philadelphia Phillies inducted McGraw into the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame.
In 2004, the Philadelphia chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America began its annual presentation of four awards to four members of the Philadelphia Phillies franchise for "season-ending achievements", including the "Tug McGraw Good Guy Award".
In 2010, McGraw was inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.
See also
Kashatus, William C. Almost A Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the 1980 Phillies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
McGraw, Tug with William C. Kashatus. Was It As Good For You? Tug McGraw & Friends Recall the 1980 World Series. Media, PA: McGraw & Co. Inc. 2000.
McGraw, Tug with Don Yaeger. Ya Gotta Believe! My Roller-Coaster Life as a Screwball Pitcher and Part-Time Father, and My Hope-Filled Fight Against Brain Cancer. NY: New American Library, 2004.
McGraw, Tug with Joseph Durso. Screwball''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
Footnotes
External links
Tug McGraw at Baseball Almanac
Tug McGraw at Baseball Library
Tug McGraw at Ultimate Mets Database
Tug McGraw at SoSH (Sons of Sam Horn)
The Tug McGraw Foundation
History: Tributes: Tug McGraw / 1944–2004. MLB.com
The Deadball Era
Genealogy: Family Group Sheet of Tug McGRAW
Tug McGraw rides a ten-speed bike and talks about bicycle safety in 1974 in this public service announcement from the Office of Traffic Safety, State of California, which is part of the Governor and the Students videotape series at the Hoover Institution Archives.
1944 births
2004 deaths
Auburn Mets players
Baseball players from Martinez, California
Deaths from brain cancer in the United States
Deaths from cancer in Tennessee
Deaths from glioblastoma
Gastonia Rangers players
Jacksonville Suns players
Major League Baseball pitchers
National League All-Stars
New York Mets players
Philadelphia Phillies players
Screwball pitchers
United States Marine Corps non-commissioned officers
United States Marine Corps reservists
Cocoa Rookie League Mets players
Florida Instructional League Mets players |
422212 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skymark%20Airlines | Skymark Airlines | () is a Japanese low-cost airline headquartered at Haneda Airport in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan. It operates scheduled services with a main base at Haneda Airport with another base at Kobe Airport where it is the dominant carrier. It also operates a base at Naha Airport. It is the only Japanese airline offering regular scheduled services at Ibaraki Airport north of Tokyo.
Skymark was the first low-cost airline established in Japan. Internet entrepreneur Shinichi Nishikubo controlled the company from 2003 to 2015, when the carrier filed for bankruptcy protection after attempting a fleet and service expansion.
In August 2015, Skymark creditors agreed to restructure the airline under the control of Japanese private equity fund Integral Corporation (50.1%), with minority investments from All Nippon Airways (16.5%), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and the Development Bank of Japan (33.4%). It remains the largest independent airline in Japan and the only independent low-cost carrier, as other low-cost carriers in Japan are controlled by either ANA or JAL.
History
Low-cost airline operations (1996–2010)
Skymark Airlines was founded in November 1996 as an independent domestic airline after deregulation of the Japanese airline industry and started operations on 19 September 1998. It was originally owned by a consortium of investors led by the travel agency H.I.S. and headed by H.I.S. president Hideo Sawada; another major early investor was the leasing company Orix. Its initial business plan called for it to be headquartered at Itami Airport in Osaka. Takashi Ide, former head of British Airways' operation in Japan, was hired as the company's CEO in 1998.
Skymark was able to obtain six slots at Haneda Airport in Tokyo in March 1997 and moved its headquarters to the Hamamatsucho district of Tokyo in March 1998. Its first scheduled flight from Haneda to Fukuoka was on 19 September 1998; it added routes from Itami to Fukuoka and Sapporo in 1999, but suspended these routes in 2000 in order to offer more frequencies on the Haneda-Fukuoka route.
In 2002, Skymark took delivery of a third Boeing 767 aircraft and began service on the Haneda-Kagoshima route, as well as charter service from Haneda to Seoul. In 2003, with a fourth 767 dry-leased from All Nippon Airways, it began service to Aomori and Tokushima.
The airline incurred considerable losses in its first few years of operations. It briefly considered a recapitalization led by Commerzbank but decided not to accept such an investment due to Air Do's issues with banks interfering in management. In August 2003, Sawada invited internet entrepreneur Shinichi Nishikubo to become Skymark's largest shareholder with a personal cash investment of 3.5 billion yen (having made around 9 billion yen from the IPO of his internet company in 2000). Nishikubo took over as CEO in 2004, maintaining Ide as a "co-pilot" due to Ide's experience in the aviation industry.
On 11 December 2003, Skymark announced that it expected a profit of 470 million yen for the half-fiscal year ending on 31 October, the first profit made since the airline began operations. By using more efficient aircraft and systems developed in-house, Skymark attempted to undercut JAL and ANA on costs in order to offer lower fares.
Skymark had a code sharing partnership with Japan Airlines starting with a Haneda-Osaka Kansai service in 2005–06, and later on the Tokyo Haneda-Kobe route from Kobe Airport's opening in 2006. JAL withdrew from Kobe in 2010, while Skymark developed Kobe into a secondary base. Skymark purchased the naming rights for the Kobe Sports Park Baseball Stadium from 2005 to 2010.
Skymark announced in April 2010 that it would commence a "Narita Shuttle" service from Narita International Airport to Asahikawa, Sapporo, Fukuoka, and Okinawa in late 2011 and early 2012.
Shift to premium service (2010–2014)
In November 2010 Skymark announced negotiations with Airbus for an order of four Airbus A380 aircraft and two options, making it the first Japanese airline to order the type. The airline announced its intent to use the aircraft on long-haul trunk routes out of Narita Airport such as London, Frankfurt, Paris and New York, and that they would be operated in a two-class, 394-seat configuration – with 114 seats in business class and 280 in a premium economy class. Nishikubo envisioned an unheard-of fully-flat product in economy class, which the Skymark team calculated would break even at a one-way fare of 100,000 yen.
As Skymark began to prepare for international service, it began to face stiff competition from a new group of low-cost carriers in Japan beginning in 2012, particularly from AirAsia Japan (later Vanilla Air) and Jetstar Japan at its Narita base. This led to a reduction in Skymark's frequencies on highly contested routes such as Narita-Sapporo and Narita-Fukuoka, and a refocusing of aircraft on more exclusive routes such as Narita-Ishigaki.
Skymark attempted a more competitive domestic offering by executing leases for seven Airbus A330-300 aircraft in July 2012. Skymark announced that it would outfit these aircraft in a 271-seat single-class premium configuration with 38-inch seat pitch and 22-inch seat width, tentatively called "Green Seats" and comparable to the domestic "Class J" offering on Japan Airlines, to win market share among business travelers on the key domestic trunk routes from Tokyo to Fukuoka and Sapporo. Skymark also had plans to install "Green Seat" cabins on its 737 fleet to create a 2-class configuration but cancelled the plan in early 2014 in favor of keeping a single-class 737 fleet for competition with other LCCs.
Somewhat controversially, Skymark announced that A330 flight attendants would wear miniskirt uniforms, in contrast to Skymark's usual polo shirt uniforms, for the first six months of operation of each route. The Japan Federation of Cabin Attendants publicly complained about the idea, claiming that the uniforms were unsafe to the women wearing them and would lead to harassment and objectification.
Starting in 2013, Delta Air Lines was highly interested in starting a codeshare agreement with Skymark, mainly due to Delta's expansion of its own Tokyo services. Following ANA's investment in Skymark however, the possibility of a codeshare agreement and further partnership with Delta was reduced.
Financial downturn and losses (2014–2015)
Skymark's finances were hit hard by foreign exchange rate fluctuations. In February 2011, when Skymark placed its initial A380 order, the Japanese yen was trading at historically high levels of around 82 yen to the U.S. dollar. After the introduction of the Abenomics policy in late 2012, the yen plunged in value, reaching around 102 yen to the dollar in early 2015. Many of Skymark's major investments and expenses were denominated in dollars—including the A380 orders, the A330 leases and its fuel costs—while its domestic ticket revenue was in yen, and the airline did not engage in exchange rate hedging. Skymark recorded its first net loss in five years for the March 2013 – 2014 fiscal year.
In early February 2014, Skymark announced that it would downsize the Narita operation to only three destinations (Sapporo, Yonago and Okinawa). Nishikubo stated that the base lost money in every month except August and that all LCCs were under pressure there. He also expressed some reservations about the A330 fleet plan, stating that while the airline had funding in place for the first two aircraft, the third and subsequent deliveries could be impacted by the performance of Skymark's domestic operation as well as the success of its initial international service. Skymark planned to re-deploy 737s from the Narita and Haneda bases for charter services to destinations such as Guam.
Airbus completed Skymark's first A380 in April 2014 and sent the aircraft to Germany for cabin installation.
In May, Skymark requested to reschedule a meeting with a European bank involved in financing of its A380 order. Airbus interpreted this as a signal that Skymark sought to renegotiate the contract, and sent a team of financial advisors to Skymark's head office in June. After a week of meetings, they proposed an amendment of the A380 purchase agreement, with the condition that if Skymark did not meet a certain revenue target, Nishikubo would be required to sell his shares to an outside investor chosen by Airbus. Nishikubo rejected this proposal in early July, believing there was a significant chance that Skymark would miss the target.
In late July, Airbus announced that it had terminated the airline's A380 orders, citing concerns over the airline's ability to fund the purchase in light of its poor financial performance. Nishikubo complained the airline was not given the opportunity to revise the contract, but simply received a fax notifying it of the termination. After further negotiations, Airbus sued Skymark for damages in a London court; it was reported that Skymark had already paid Airbus 26.5 billion yen for the aircraft and could face up to 70 billion yen in penalties.
Skymark's A330s entered service on the Haneda-Fukuoka route in June 2014, but the additional seat capacity depressed Skymark's load factors on the route. Although Skymark's 737s were booked to more than 80% of capacity up to May 2014, the much larger A330s were only booked at 67% of capacity as of December 2014, while ANA or JAL achieved similar load factors with much higher-capacity aircraft. In an attempt to raise revenue, Skymark raised advance purchase fares on the route by 23% in October, bringing them closer to the level of JAL and ANA and further harming the competitiveness of the service.
As the Airbus dispute lingered, Skymark pursued new sources of cash. It announced in November 2014 that it was exploring a cooperative relationship with Japan Airlines under which Skymark's 36 daily round trips to and from Haneda Airport would be code shared with JAL, subject to approval by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Skymark initially pursued JAL due to a perception that JAL could not threaten Skymark's independence; the terms of JAL's bankruptcy restructuring prevented it from making an investment in Skymark. However, the Japanese government pressed Skymark to make the codeshare trilateral with both JAL and ANA, reflecting the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's preference for ANA. Skymark also attempted a sale and leaseback of over 1 billion yen in equipment as a cash-raising measure, negotiating with a JAL-affiliated trading company and then with an ANA-affiliated trading company. In January 2015, ANA refused to provide financial support to Skymark, and several investment funds also balked at the prospect of injecting cash into the company.
Bankruptcy (2015–2016)
Skymark filed for bankruptcy protection under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law (equivalent to a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States of America or an administration in the United Kingdom) at the Tokyo District Court in January 2015 after reporting ¥71 billion (or $571.3 million) in liabilities. It announced that Nishikubo would step down as CEO and would be replaced by CFO Masakazu Arimori. Skymark announced that the A330s would be withdrawn from operation in March, and that various services to Okinawa and Kyushu would be eliminated. In an attempt to regain price competitiveness, Skymark introduced a fare of ¥8,000 on the Haneda-Fukuoka route, 1,800 cheaper than the next cheapest competitor, StarFlyer. Skymark was approached by several potential sponsors early in its bankruptcy proceedings, including ANA, AirAsia, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines.
Skymark's restructuring plan, submitted to the court in May, called for turnaround sponsor Japanese private equity fund Integral to own 50.1% of the recapitalized company, ANA to own 16.5%, and the remainder 33.4% to be owned by an investment fund controlled by government-affiliated Development Bank of Japan and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, with Integral providing the new chairman, DBJ providing the new CEO, and code sharing between Skymark and ANA.
Intrepid Aviation and Airbus, who together held around two-thirds of Skymark's debt, opposed the plan, and Intrepid submitted a competing plan which called for another (unspecified) airline to sponsor Skymark's restructuring. Intrepid reportedly approached several foreign airlines seeking support for this alternative plan.
In the final creditor vote on 6 August 2015, the plan supported by ANA and Integral defeated a competing plan supported by Intrepid and Delta. The Delta plan was initially assumed to be the front runner based on Airbus's closer relationship with Delta, but Airbus ultimately switched sides and supported the ANA plan. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported that ANA made a conditional offer in late July to purchase Airbus aircraft, which Delta did not match by a prescribed midnight deadline, leading Airbus to switch its stance on the restructuring. ANA announced an order for three A380 aircraft in late 2015, which even ANA admitted was not consistent with its overall fleet plan, leading to speculation that ANA had agreed to accept Skymark's A380 orders in exchange for Airbus's support.
Post-bankruptcy (2016–present)
After exiting bankruptcy in 2016, Skymark's finances improved more quickly than expected; the company recorded 6.7 billion yen in operating profit in the March 2016 – 2017 fiscal year. Skymark focused its network expansion on its hubs in Kobe and Ibaraki, and announced plans for 150 daily flights in summer 2018, up from 138 in summer 2017.
Skymark announced in June 2018 that it intended to offer international charter flights from Narita to Saipan and Palau, its first international services, with the flights to Saipan subsequently becoming scheduled flights in late 2019. The Saipan route was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was never restored; in late 2022, the CEO of Skymark publicly stated that the airline has no plans to resume scheduled international service before 2026.
In August 2020, the airline announced Shimojishima Airport as a new destination, with flights beginning in October 2020.
Skymark was re-listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in December 2022, after eight years as a privately-held company.
In January 2023, Skymark announced firm orders for four Boeing 737 MAX aircraft (two 737 MAX 8 and two 737 MAX 10), as well as options to purchase one of each, and a plan to lease six more MAX 8s. The new aircraft are scheduled to enter service between 2025 and 2027.
Routes
Skymark Airlines has operated scheduled flights to the following destinations :
List of Main route
Codeshare agreements
Skymark has previously sought or established codeshare agreements with airlines including All Nippon Airways, Delta Air Lines, and Japan Airlines, but since 2018 has insisted on operating independently of these partnerships.
Fleet
Current fleet
The Skymark Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of June 2020):
Former fleet
Fleet development
Previously, Skymark operated seven Boeing 767-200 and Boeing 767-300 widebody aircraft between 1998 and 2005. Some 767 fuselages were painted in special "billboard" liveries advertising third-party companies, including Yahoo Japan, Microsoft, J-Phone and USEN Japan. The six 767s acquired by Skymark carried registrations JA767A to JA767F; the seventh, JA8255, was leased from All Nippon Airways from 2003 to 2004.
Under Nishikubo, Skymark began acquiring new Boeing 737-800 narrowbody aircraft in 2005 and eventually retired the 767 from its fleet in 2009.
Skymark ceased flying the A330 and most of the 737s during its bankruptcy in 2015. All A380 orders from Skymark were rescinded as well, although All Nippon Airways proceeded to take three of the five original orders. The two remaining Skymark A380s that were placed into long-term storage following their production were taken up by Emirates.
Frequent flyer program
Skymark planned to introduce a frequent-flyer program in January 2014 to coincide with the launch of its premium domestic service, though the induction of the program was delayed in December 2013 in order to focus on preparing for international service, before being postponed indefinitely. While the airline does not retain its own frequent-flyer program, Skymark has provided award seats to members of the Delta Air Lines SkyMiles program since June 2011, although the two airlines do not codeshare, nor can Skymark flights be used to accrue under Delta's SkyMiles program.
References
External links
Official website
Official website
Skymark Airlines fleet
Airlines of Japan
Low-cost carriers
Airlines established in 1996
Companies that have filed for bankruptcy in Japan
Japanese brands
Airline companies based in Tokyo
Japanese companies established in 1996 |
422214 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist%20Party%20of%20Czechoslovakia | Communist Party of Czechoslovakia | The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa, KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Comintern. Between 1929 and 1953, it was led by Klement Gottwald. The KSČ was the sole governing party in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic though it was a leading party along with the Slovak branch and four other legally permitted non-communist parties. After its election victory in 1946, it seized power in the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état and established a one-party state allied with the Soviet Union. Nationalization of virtually all private enterprises followed, and a command economy was implemented.
The KSČ was committed to the pursuit of communism, and after Joseph Stalin's rise to power Marxism–Leninism became formalized as the party's guiding ideology and would remain so throughout the rest of its existence. Consequently, party organisation was based on Bolshevik-like democratic centralism; its highest body was the Party Congress, which convened every five years. When the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo. The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or some of the three offices concurrently, but never all three at the same time.
In 1968, party leader Alexander Dubček proposed reforms that included a democratic process and initiated the Prague Spring, leading to the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Union. Under pressure from the Kremlin, all reforms were repealed, party leadership became taken over by its more authoritarian wing, and a massive non-bloody purge of party members was conducted. In 1989, however, the party leadership bowed to popular pressure during the Velvet Revolution and agreed to call the first contested election since 1946, leading to the victory of the centre-based Civic Forum in the 1990 election and the KSČ stepping down. That November, the party became a federation of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and the Communist Party of Slovakia. It was then declared to be a criminal organisation in the Czech Republic by the 1993 Act on Illegality of the Communist Regime and on Resistance Against It.
History
1921–45
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was founded at the congress of the Czechoslovak Social-Democratic Party (Left), held in Prague May 14–16, 1921. Rudé právo, previously the organ of the Left Social-Democrats, became the main organ of the new party. As a first chairman was elected Václav Šturc, first vice-chairman was Bohumír Šmeral and second vice-chairman was Vaclav Bolen. The party was one of some twenty political parties that competed within the democratic framework of the First Czechoslovak Republic, but it was never in government. In 1925 parliamentary election the party gained 934,223 votes (13.2%, 2nd place) and 41 seats.
The party was the Czechoslovak section of the Communist International. As of 1928 the party was the second-largest section of the International, with an estimated membership of around 138,000, more than twice the membership of the French Communist Party and nearly five times the membership of the Chinese Communist Party at the time.
In 1929 Klement Gottwald became party Secretary-General after the purging from it of various oppositional elements some of whom allied themselves to Trotsky and the International Left Opposition. In 1929 parliamentary election the party gained 753,220 votes (10.2%, 4th place) and 30 seats. In 1935 parliamentary election the party held its 30 seats with 849,495 votes (10.32%, 4th place).
The party was banned on 20 October 1938, but continued to exist as an
underground organisation. Following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, anti-German protests broke out in
Prague in October 1939. In response, the Comintern ordered the party to oppose the protests, which they blamed on
"chauvinist elements".
During World War II many KSČ leaders sought refuge in the Soviet Union, where they prepared to broaden the party's power base once the war ended. In the early postwar period the Soviet-supported Czechoslovak communists launched a sustained drive that culminated in their seizure of power in 1948. Once in control, KSČ developed an organizational structure and mode of rule patterned closely after those of CPSU.
1945–69
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was in a coalition government from 1945 to 1948. After the war the party grew rapidly, reaching one million members by the time of the 1946 elections: at these elections it became the largest party in Parliament, and party chairman Klement Gottwald became prime minister in a free election.
Following the Communist coup d'état of 1948, when free elections and other political freedoms were effectively abolished, power was formally held by the National Front, a coalition in which the KSČ held two-thirds of the seats while the remaining one-third were shared among five other political parties. However, KSČ held a de facto absolute monopoly on political power, and the other parties within the National Front were little more than auxiliaries. Even the governmental structure of Czechoslovakia existed primarily to implement policy decisions made within the KSČ.
A dispute broke out between Gottwald and the second most-powerful man in the country, party General Secretary Rudolf Slánský, over the extent to which Czechoslovakia should conform with the Soviet model. In 1951, Slánský and several other senior Communists were arrested and charged with participating in a "Trotskyite-Titoite-Zionist conspiracy". They were subjected to a show trial in 1952 (the Prague Trials) and Slánský and 10 other defendants were executed.
In the early 1960s, Czechoslovakia underwent an economic downturn, and in 1968, the KSČ was taken over by reformers led by Alexander Dubček. He started a period of liberalization known as the Prague Spring in which he attempted to implement "socialism with a human face".
The Soviet Union believed the process of liberalization would end state socialism in the country and on 21 August 1968, Warsaw Pact forces invaded. Subsequently, the Soviet justification for the invasion would become known as the Brezhnev Doctrine.
1969–92
In April 1969, Dubček was removed as party General Secretary (replaced by Gustáv Husák) and expelled in 1970. During the period of normalization that followed, the party was dominated by two factions: moderates and hardliners.
Moderates and pragmatists
Moderates and pragmatists were represented by Gustáv Husák who led the neo-stalinist wing of KSČ leadership. As a moderate or pragmatic, he was pressed by hardliners, most notably Vasil Biľak. An important Slovak Communist Party functionary from 1943 to 1950, Husák was arrested in 1951 and sentenced to three years, later increased to life imprisonment, for "bourgeois nationalism" during the Stalinist purges of the era. Released in 1960 and rehabilitated in 1963, Husák refused any political position in Antonín Novotný's régime but after Novotný's fall he became deputy prime minister during the Prague Spring. After Dubček's resignation Husák was named KSČ First Secretary in April 1969 and president of the republic in July 1975. Above all, Husák was a survivor who learned to accommodate the powerful political forces surrounding him and he denounced Dubček after 1969.
Other prominent moderates/pragmatics who were still in power by 1987 included:
Lubomír Štrougal, Premier of Czechoslovakia;
Peter Colotka, Premier of the Slovak Socialist Republic;
Jozef Lenárt, First Secretary of the KSS;
Josef Kempný, Chairman of the Czech National Council.
These leaders generally supported the reforms instituted under Dubček during the late 1960s but successfully made the transition to orthodox party rule following the invasion and Dubček's decline from power. Subsequently, they adopted a more flexible stance regarding economic reform and dissident activity.
Hardliners
Key members of this faction included:
Vasiľ Biľak, their leader, was a Rusyn from Eastern Slovakia who had been member of the Presidium since 1968 and was Chairman of the party's Ideological Commission
Karel Hoffman, a Central Committee Secretary and Presidium member;
Antonín Kapek, Presidium member;
Jan Fojtík, Secretary;
Alois Indra, Presidium member and Chairman of the Federal Assembly (replaced the National Assembly under 1968 federation law); and
Miloš Jakeš, Chairman of the Central Supervisory and Auditing Commission and Presidium member (replaced Gustáv Husák as the Party's General Secretary in 1987).
These hardliners opposed economic and political reforms and took a harsh stand on dissent.
The party's hegemony ended with the Velvet Revolution in 1989. In November, Jakeš and the entire Presidium resigned. Jakeš was succeeded by Karel Urbanek, who only held power for about a month before the party formally abandoned power in December. Later that month, Husák, who retained the presidency after standing down as general secretary, was forced to swear in the country's first non-Communist government in 41 years.
Federal party and dissolution
At the 18th party congress held November 3–4, 1990, the party was rebaptized as KSČS and became a federation of two parties: the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) and the Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS). Pavol Kanis served as the chairman of the Federal Council of KSČS. However, the two constituent organizations of the federal party were moving in different directions politically and there was great tension between them. KSS, the Slovak constituent party of KSČS, was renamed as Party of the Democratic Left (SDL) on January 26, 1991. Whilst no longer a communist party per se, SDL formally remained as the Slovak constituent party of KSČS.
In August 1991, upon the request of SDL, the party mutated into the Federation of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia and the Party of the Democratic Left (Federácie KSČM a SDĽ). KSČM unsuccessfully appealed to two Slovak communist splinter parties, the Communist Party of Slovakia – 91 (KSS '91) and the Union of Communists of Slovakia (ZKS), to join the Federation. At the first SDL congress in December 1991, SDL formally withdrew from the Federation with the KSČM. The Federation was formally declared dissolved in April 1992.
Claimed reformation
On 10 March 1995 a party named Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was registered as a political party in the Czech Republic and on the 22 April 1995 Miroslav Štěpán was elected its General Secretary. The party claimed to be the heir to KSČ and rejected the claims of KSČM on the basis of their revisionist positions. The majority of remaining communists rejected their claim to represent the old party and continued their political career as members of KSČM. In 1999 the party changed its name to The Party of Czech Communists (SČK). Their official page is http://www.ksc.cz/ and still uses the old acronym.
In 2001 the party underwent its first split, when a part of it split off to form the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia – Czechoslovak Labour Party (KSČ-ČSSP) led by Ludvík Zifčák, a former member of the National Police, who infiltrated the student protesters during the Velvet Revolution. The false story that a student named Martin Šmíd was killed by the state police was likely aided by the demonstrators confusing memories of him with a dead body of a student, because he was accidentally struck by his colleagues and blacked out.
After Štěpán died in 2014 and was replaced as General Secretary by Jiří Vábr, the party had another split. Vojtěch Mišičák accused the party of passivity and broke off a new group called the Czech Communist Party 21 (KSČ21), whose current general secretary is Zdeněk Klímek.
None of these parties ever had any electoral successes on the rare occasion they even ran candidates. Štěpán was a candidate in the 1996 and 1998 Czech Senate election for Bruntál. In 1996 he came fifth with 627 votes and the KSČM candidate Rostislav Harazin came 3rd with 5 294 votes. In 1998 he came seventh with 716 votes and Harazin won with 7 852 votes in the first round and 10 154 in the second.
Organisation
National
KSČ organization was based on the Leninist concept of democratic centralism, which provided for the election of party leaders at all levels but required that each level be fully subject to the control of the next higher unit. Accordingly, party programs and policies were directed from the top, and resolutions of higher organs were unconditionally binding on all lower organs and individual party members. In theory, policy matters were freely and openly discussed at congresses, conferences, membership meetings, and in the party press. In practice, however, these discussions merely reflected decisions made by a small contingent of top party officials.
The supreme KSČ organ was the party congress, which normally convened every five years for a session lasting less than one week. An exception was made with respect to the 14th Party Congress, which was held in August 1968 under Dubček's leadership. Held in semi-secrecy in a tractor factory in the opening days of the Soviet occupation, this congress denounced the invasion, and was later declared illegal, its proceedings stricken from party records, and a second, "legal" 14th Party Congress held in May 1971. Subsequent numbered congresses were held in April 1976, April 1981 and March 1986. Party congress theoretically was responsible for making basic policy decisions; in practice, however, it was the Presidium of the Central Committee that held the decision-making and policy-making responsibilities. The congress merely endorsed the reports and directives of the top party leadership. The statutory duties assigned the party congress included determination of the party's domestic and foreign policies; approval of the party program and statutes; and election of the Central Committee and the Central Supervisory and Auditing Commission, as well as discussion and approval of their reports.
Between congresses, KSČ's Central Committee (CC) was responsible for directing party activities and implementing general policy decisions. Party statutes also provided that CC functioned as the primary arm of KSČ control over the organs of federal government and the republics, National Front, and all cultural and professional organizations. Party members holding leading positions in these bodies were responsible directly to CC for the implementation of KSČ policies. In addition, CC screened nominations for all important government and party positions and selected the editor-in-chief of Rudé právo, the principal party newspaper. CC generally met in full session at least twice a year. In 1976, CC had 115 members and 45 candidates; in 1986, these figures were 135 and 62, respectively. In terms of composition, CC normally included leading party and government officials, military officials, and some celebrities.
CC, like the party congress, rarely acted as more than a rubber stamp of policy decisions made by KSČ's Presidium, except when factional infighting developed within the Presidium in 1968 and CC assumed crucial importance in resolving the dispute to oust First Secretary Novotný in favour of Dubček. Generally, decisions on which CC voted were reached beforehand so that votes taken at the sessions were unanimous. The Presidium, which conducted party work between full committee sessions, formally was elected by the CC; in reality, top party leaders determined its composition. In 1986, there were 11 full members and 6 candidate members.
CC's Secretariat acted as the party's highest administrative authority and as the nerve centre of the party's extensive control mechanism. The Secretariat supervised implementation of decisions made in the Presidium, controlled any movement up and down the party ladder, and directed work within the party and government apparatus. Under Husák, composition of the Secretariat, like that of the Presidium, remained rather constant. Many secretaries were also members of the Presidium.
The Central Supervisory and Auditing Commission played a dual role, overseeing party discipline and supervising party finances, but it did not control anything. As an organ for enforcement of party standards, Central Supervisory and Auditing Commission frequently wielded its power to suspend or expel "deviant" party members. It was this commission that directed the massive purges in party membership during the early and late 1970s. Members were elected at each party congress (45 members in 1986). These members then elected from among themselves a chairman, deputy chairmen, and a small presidium. Sub-units of the commission existed at the republic, regional and district levels of the party structure.
Other KSČ commissions in 1987 included People's Supervisory Commission, Agriculture and Food Commission, Economic Commission, Ideological Commission, and Youth Commission.
In 1987 the party also had 18 departments (agitation and propaganda; agriculture, food industry, forestry and water management; Comecon cooperation; culture; economic administration; economics; education and science; elected state organs; external economic relations; fuels and energy; industry; transport and communications; international affairs; mass media; political organisation; science and technology; social organisations and national committees; state administration; and a general department). In most instances the party departments paralleled agencies and ministries of the government and supervised their activities to ensure conformity with KSČ norms and programmes.
Also under CC supervision were two party training centres: the Advanced School of Politics and the Institute of Marxism–Leninism (see below).
Republic level
Down on republic level party structure deviated from the government organisation in that a separate communist party unit existed in the Slovak Socialist Republic (see Communist Party of Slovakia) but not in the Czech Socialist Republic. KSS emerged from World War II as a party distinct from KSČ, but the two were united after the communist takeover in 1948. The reformer movement of the 1960s advocated a return to a system of autonomous parties for the two republics. Bureau for the Conduct of Party Work in the Czech Lands was created as a counterpart to KSS, but it was suppressed after the 1968 invasion and by 1971 had been stricken from party records.
Regional level
KSČ had ten regional subdivisions (seven in the Czech lands, three in Slovakia) identical to kraje, the ten major governmental administrative divisions. In addition, however, the Prague and Bratislava municipal party organs, because of their size, were given regional status within KSČ. Regional conferences selected regional committees, which in turn selected a leading secretary, a number of secretaries and a regional Supervisory and Auditing Commission.
Regional units were broken down into a total of 114 district-level (Czech: okresní) organisations. District conferences were held simultaneously every two to three years, at which time each conference selected a district committee that subsequently selected a secretariat to be headed by a district secretary.
Local level
At local level, KSČ was structured according to what it called "territorial and production principle"; basic party units were organised in work sites and residences where there are at least five KSČ members. In enterprises or communities where party membership was more numerous, smaller units functioned under larger city-, village- or factory-wide committees. Highest authority of the local organisation was, theoretically, the monthly membership meeting, attendance at which was a basic duty of every member. Each group selected its own leadership, consisting of a chairman and one or more secretaries. It also named delegates to the conference of the next higher unit, be it at municipal (like in case of larger cities) or district level.
Membership
Since assuming power in 1948, KSČ had one of the largest per capita membership rolls in the communist world (11 percent of the entire population). The membership roll was often alleged by party ideologues to contain a large component of inactive, opportunistic, and "counterrevolutionary" elements. These charges were used on two occasions, between 1948 and 1950 and again from 1969 to 1971, as a pretext to conduct massive purges of the membership. In the first case, during the great Stalinist purges, nearly one million members were removed; in the wake of the Prague Spring and subsequent invasion, about half that number either resigned or were purged from KSČ.
Purges following the 1968 invasion hit especially the Czechs, the youth and the blue-collar workers, as well as the intelligentsia within the party membership. By the end of 1970, KSČ had lost approx. 27.8% of its members compared to January 1968 figures as a result of forced removal or voluntary resignation. Despite this attrition, a membership of "almost 1,200,000" was claimed in the spring of 1971 for a country with an estimated population of approx. 14.5 million — still one of the highest Communist party membership rates in the world on a percentage basis at that time. Owing to this membership decline, accelerated recruitment efforts were targeted at youth and factory workers for the rest of the 1970s.
The party's membership efforts in the 1980s focused on recruiting politically and professionally qualified people willing to exercise greater activism in implementing the party's program. Party leaders at the 17th Party Congress (1986) urged recruitment of more workers, young people, and women. In 1981 it had 1,538,179 members (10% of the population)
KSČ membership was contingent upon completion of a one-year period as a candidate member. Candidate members could not vote or be elected to party committees. In addition to candidates for party membership, there were also candidates for party leadership groups from the local levels to the Presidium. These candidates, already party members, were considered interns training for the future assumption of particular leadership responsibilities.
Training of members
Indoctrination and training of party members was one of the basic responsibilities of regional and district organizations, and party training was mostly conducted on these levels. Regional and district units worked with local party organizations in setting up training programs and determining which members would be enrolled in particular courses of study. On the whole, the system of party schooling changed little since it was established in 1949. A district or city organization provided weekly classes in the fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism, history of communism, socialist economics, and current party position on domestic and international affairs.
Members training for positions as party functionaries attended seminars at schools for Marxism–Leninism set up in local areas or at more advanced institutes for Marxism–Leninism found in Prague, Brno and Bratislava. The highest level of party training was offered at the Advanced School of Politics in Prague. Designed to train the top echelon of party leadership, the three-year curriculum had the official status of a university program and was said to be one of the best programs in political science in Eastern Europe. These institutions were under the direction of KSČ Central Committee.
Membership demographics
Because of KSČ's mandate to be a workers' party, questions about social background of party members took on a particular salience. KSČ was often reticent with precise details about its members, and the question of how many in the party actually belonged to the revolutionary proletariat proper became a delicate one. Official statements appeared to overstate the percentage of workers within the party's ranks. Nonetheless, a number of trends were clear. The proportion of workers in KSČ was at its highest (approximately 60% of total membership) after World War II but before the party took power in 1948. After that time, percentage of workers fell steadily to a low of an estimated one-quarter of the membership in 1970.
In the early 1970s, government media decried the "grave imbalance," noting that "[the] present class and social structure of party membership is not in conformity with the party's role as a vanguard for the working class." In highly industrialized central Bohemia, for example, only 1 in every 35 workers was party member, while 1 in every 5 administrators was. In 1976, after intensive efforts to recruit workers, number of workers rose to one-third of the KSČ membership, i.e., approx. its 1962 level. In the 1980s, driven by a need for "intensive" economic development, the party relaxed its rigid rule about young workers' priority in admissions and allowed district and regional committees to be flexible in their recruitment policy, as long as the overall proportion of workers did not decrease.
Average age of party members showed a comparable trend. In the late 1960s, fewer than 30% of party members were under 35 years of age, nearly 20% were over 60, and roughly half were 45 or older. The quip in 1971, a half-century after the party's founding in Czechoslovakia, was "After fifty years, a party of fifty-year-olds." There was a determined effort to attract younger members to the party in the middle to late 1970s; one strategy was to recruit children of parents who were KSČ members. The party sent letters to the youngsters' schools and their parents' employers, encouraging the children to join. By early 1980 approximately one-third of KSČ members were 35 years of age or younger. In 1983, average age of the "leading cadre" was still estimated at 50.
Lack of party loyalty in the 1970s and 1980s
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, government media denounced party members' lack of devotion to the pursuit of KSČ policies and goals. Complaints ranged from members' refusal to display flags from their apartment windows on festive occasions to their failure to show up for party work brigades, attend meetings, or pay dues; a significant minority of members tended to underreport their incomes (the basis for assessing dues). In 1970, after a purge of approximately one-third of the membership, an average of less than half the remaining members attended meetings. Perhaps one-third of members were consistently recalcitrant in participating in KSČ activities. In 1983, one primary party branch in the Prague-West district was so unmoved by admonishments that it had to be disbanded and its members dispersed among other organizations. In part, this was a measure of disaffection with Czechoslovakia's thoroughgoing subservience to Soviet hegemony, a Švejkian response to the lack of political and economic autonomy. It was also a reflection of the purge's targets. Those expelled were often the ideologically motivated, the ones for whom developing socialism with a human face represented a significant goal; those who were simply opportunistic survived the purges more easily.
Election results
Czechoslovakia wide elections
Legislative elections
Devolved assembly elections
Slovak assembly elections
Czech assembly elections
Party leaders
* Official designations of leaders of the KSČ: 1921–1945 General Secretary (; ); 1945–53 Chairman (; ); 1953–1971 First Secretary (;); 1971–1989: General Secretary; 1989–1990 Chairman.
See also
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
Communist Party of Slovakia
Communist Party of Slovakia (1939)
National Front (Czechoslovakia)
Left Front (Czechoslovakia)
Eastern Bloc politics
History of Czechoslovakia
References
Further reading
H. Gordon Skilling, "Gottwald and the Bolshevization of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (1929–1939)," Slavic Review, vol. 20, no. 4 (Dec. 1961), pp. 641–655. via JSTOR.
H. Gordon Skilling, "The Formation of a Communist Party in Czechoslovakia", American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Oct., 1955), pp. 346–358
An Outline of the History of the CPCz, an official account published in 1985.
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
Prague Spring
Velvet Revolution
Parties of one-party systems
Political parties established in 1921
Political parties disestablished in 1992
Formerly banned communist parties
Formerly ruling communist parties
1921 establishments in Czechoslovakia
1992 disestablishments in Czechoslovakia
Czech resistance groups
Czech Social Democratic Party breakaway groups |
422218 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel%20Clowes | Daniel Clowes | Daniel Gillespie Clowes (; born April 14, 1961) is an American cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter. Most of Clowes's work first appeared in Eightball, a solo anthology comic book series. An Eightball issue typically contained several short pieces and a chapter of a longer narrative that was later collected and published as a graphic novel, such as Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (1993), Ghost World (1997), David Boring (2000) and Patience (2016). Clowes's illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, Newsweek, Vogue, The Village Voice, and elsewhere. With filmmaker Terry Zwigoff, Clowes adapted Ghost World into a 2001 film and another Eightball story into the 2006 film, Art School Confidential. Clowes's comics, graphic novels, and films have received numerous awards, including a Pen Award for Outstanding Work in Graphic Literature, over a dozen Harvey and Eisner Awards, and an Academy Award nomination.
Early life and career, 1961–1988
Clowes was born in Chicago, Illinois, to an auto mechanic mother and a furniture craftsman father. His mother was Jewish, whereas his father was from a "reserved WASPish Pennsylvania" family; Clowes's upbringing was not religious. In 1979, he finished high school at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, where he earned a BFA in 1984. It was at Pratt that he met and befriended fellow cartoonist Rick Altergott, with whom he started the small-press comics publisher Look Mom Comics.
According to Clowes scholar Ken Parille, the cartoonist had an early response to a "graphic" comic when, at age four, he burst into tears and began hitting his head against a wall after seeing a cover of a Strange Adventures comic book that depicted a family dying of heat. Later, he received "piles of 1950s and 1960s classic titles like Archie and The Fantastic Four" from his older brother, who also introduced him to the work of legendary cartoonist R. Crumb.
Clowes's first professional work appeared in 1985 in Cracked, and he contributed to the magazine until 1989, working under a variety of pseudonyms, most prominently "Stosh Gillespie", and, toward the end of his tenure, under his own name. Clowes and writer Mort Todd co-created a recurring Cracked feature titled The Uggly Family. In 1985, Clowes drew the first comic to feature his character Lloyd Llewellyn. He sent the story to Fantagraphics' Gary Groth, and his work soon appeared in the Hernandez brothers' Love and Rockets #13. Fantagraphics published six magazine-sized, black and white issues of Lloyd Llewellyn in 1986 and 1987, another story was published as a Back-up story in the reprint book Doomsday Squad (1986) and The All-New Lloyd Llewellyn, the final Llewellyn comic book, appeared in 1988.
Eightball, 1989–2004
In 1989, Fantagraphics published the first issue of Clowes's comic book Eightball. On issue #1's masthead, Clowes described the anthology as "An Orgy of Spite, Vengeance, Hopelessness, Despair, and Sexual Perversiona". Eightball lasted twenty three issues, ending in 2004. One of the most widely acclaimed American alternative comics, it won over two dozen awards, and all of Clowes's Eightball serials have been collected and released as graphic novels.
From #1 to #18, an Eightball issue typically contained short pieces that ranged in genre from comical rant and Freudian analysis to fairy tale and cultural criticism. These issues also featured a chapter of a serial that Clowes later collected as a graphic novel: Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (1993), Pussey! (1995), and Ghost World (1997). With #19, Clowes abandoned the anthology format. The oversized black and white issues #19–21 each contained a single act of Clowes's three-act David Boring, which was released as a graphic novel in 2000. Clowes again changed format with #22. The first full-color Eightball, #22 included a single graphic novel-length story Ice Haven. The final issue, #23 was a full-color, single-story comic The Death-Ray released in 2004.
During the early 1990s, Clowes was associated with Seattle label Sub Pop, creating artwork for recordings by Thee Headcoats, The Supersuckers, The John Peel Sessions, and The Sub Pop Video Program collection. He designed the label's mascot, Punky, who appeared on T-shirts, paddle-balls, watches, and other merchandise. In 1994, Clowes created art for the Ramones video "I Don't Want to Grow Up".
Post-Eightball, 2005–2023
After Eightball ended in 2004, Clowes began to release full-color graphic novels, beginning in 2005 with Ice Haven, a revised version of the comic that appeared in Eightball #22. In 2010 Drawn and Quarterly published Wilson, Clowes's first graphic novel that had not been serialized in Eightball. The next year, Pantheon released Mister Wonderful, a revised and reformatted version of a narrative serialized weekly in 2007 and 2008 in The Sunday New York Times Magazine, a story Clowes described as a "romance." 2011 also saw the Drawn and Quarterly hardcover release of The Death-Ray, which first appeared in Eightball #23.
During this period, Clowes drew the first of several New Yorker covers and contributed comics to Zadie Smith's The Book of Other People (2008) and the influential art comics anthology Kramers Ergot (#7, 2008). In 2006, after a health crisis, Clowes underwent open-heart surgery. His longest graphic novel Patience was released in the US in March 2016. His latest graphic novel Monica was released on October 3, 2023, by Fantagraphics. Clowes lives in Oakland, California, with his wife Erika and son Charlie.
Cultural contexts
Clowes's work emerged from the late-1980s and early-'90s American alternative comics scene and played an important role in comics achieving a new level of respect from reviewers, academics, and readers. Ghost World was among the earliest American "literary" comics to be marketed and sold through conventional book stores as a graphic novel. (Clowes has been critical of the terms "literary comics" and "graphic novel.") It was presented in serial form within Eightball #11‐#18 (1993‐1997).
Some of his most popular stories, such as Ghost World and "The Party", are associated with Generation X ("The Party" was reprinted in Douglas Rushkoff's 1994 GenX Reader). This movement's investment in post-adolescent aimlessness was one of Clowes's main themes during the 1990s. The cartoonist led the way for comic artists like Adrian Tomine and Craig Thompson, who also focused on the angst of post-adolescent characters.
Like filmmaker David Lynch, Clowes is known for mixing elements of kitsch and the grotesque. Reflecting the cartoonist's interest in 1950s and 1960s TV, film, mainstream and underground comics, and Mad magazine, these elements surface in Clowes's 1990s work, especially his graphic novel Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. During the 1990s, the juxtaposition of kitsch and horror became something of a zeitgeist in visual art, independent film, and post-underground comics.
Clowes's post-2000 graphic novels marked a shift in subject matter and form. Ice Haven, The Death-Ray, Wilson, and Mister Wonderful featured older protagonists and explored issues of masculinity and aging. Like the work of his fellow cartoonists Chris Ware and Art Spiegelman, these comics displayed an interest in American comic-strip history, using layouts, coloring, and drawing styles reminiscent of newspaper cartoons, especially the large early- and mid-twentieth-century Sunday comic strips.
Awards
Clowes has received dozens of awards and nominations for his comics and film work. In 2002 he was nominated for several awards for the Ghost World film, including an Academy Award for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Published, an AFI Award for Screenwriter of the Year, a Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Screenplay, and others.
For his comics, Clowes has won many Harvey Awards, including Best Writer in 1997 and 2005; Best Series in 1990, 1991, 1992, and 1997; Best Letter in 1991 and 1997; Best Single Issue or Story in 1990, 1991, 1998 and 2005; and Best Cartoonist in 2002. He has won numerous Eisner Awards, including Best Writer/Artist: Drama in 2000 and 2002; Best Single Issue/Single Story in 2002 and 2005; Best Short Story in 2008; Best New Graphic Album in 2011. In 2011, he won a Pen Award for Outstanding Body of Work in Graphic Literature.
Clowes was awarded the Inkpot Award in 2006.
Exhibitions
Clowes's original art has appeared in American group shows as well as exhibitions in Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, and elsewhere. His first solo show was held at Los Angeles's Richard Heller Gallery in 2003. In 2012, Susan Miller curated his first museum retrospective, Modern Cartoonist: The Art of Daniel Clowes at the Oakland Museum of California. It featured 100 works, including pencil and ink drawings, color pencil illustrations, and gouache art, with covers for The New Yorker, Eightball issues, and Clowes's graphic novels. The show traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 2013, and is at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio, in mid-2014. It may continue on to Europe and Asia.
Screenwriting
In the late 1990s, Clowes began a career as a screenwriter. His first film was 2001's Ghost World. Based on Clowes's comic of the same name and written with director Terry Zwigoff, the film is set in a nondescript American town and follows the misadventures of two best friends, Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), who detest most of their high school classmates. After graduation they plan on moving in together and avoiding college, but they grow apart as adult pressures take their toll. The girls play a prank on a nerdy record collector named Seymour (Steve Buscemi), who quickly becomes Enid's unlikely friend and confidante, as her relationship with Rebecca deteriorates. Nominated for a host of awards, most notably a 2002 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, the movie appeared on many 2001 "Best of" lists. In 2001, Fantagraphics published Ghost Word: A Screenplay.
Clowes's second film Art School Confidential was based on the cartoonist's experiences at Pratt Institute in the early 1980s. (Clowes's four-page comic "Art School Confidential" covered some of the same experiences.) Directed by Zwigoff with a script by Clowes, the film follows Jerome (Max Minghella), an art student who dreams of becoming the world's greatest artist. The film was not as well received as Ghost World. In 2006, Fantagraphics published Art School Confidential: A Screenplay. A third adaptation of a Clowes graphic novel, Wilson, directed by Craig Johnson, starring Woody Harrelson, and with Clowes writing the screenplay, was released in 2017.
At least four other film projects have been discussed or partially developed, with one being abandoned and two remaining in limbo for over seven years. Clowes and director Michel Gondry discussed making a film based on Rudy Rucker's novel Master of Space and Time, with Clowes writing and Gondry directing, but the project never advanced beyond this stage; of the film Clowes said, "I actually announced that that wasn't going to be made at the 2006 San Diego [Comic] Con." In 2006, Clowes began writing a script based on his comic The Death-Ray for a movie to be produced by Jack Black's Black and White Productions. Clowes also wrote a screenplay based on the true story of three boys who, over the course of seven years, filmed a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark. , neither The Death-Ray nor the Raiders project has been greenlit. In 2016, it was announced Clowes will adapt his graphic novel Patience for Focus Features. the project remains in development.
Plagiarism by Shia LaBeouf
In December 2013, Shia LaBeouf's short film Howard Cantour.com became available online. Soon thereafter, those familiar with indie comics noticed its remarkable resemblance to "Justin M. Damiano," a comic Clowes contributed to the 2008 charity anthology The Book of Other People. The short film was then removed by LaBeouf, who claimed that he was not "copying" Clowes, but rather was "inspired" by him and "got lost in the creative process." LaBeouf later issued several apologies on Twitter, writing, "In my excitement and naiveté as an amateur filmmaker, I got lost in the creative process and neglected to follow proper accreditation", and "I deeply regret the manner in which these events have unfolded and want @danielclowes to know that I have a great respect for his work." Clowes responded by saying "The first I ever heard of the film was this morning when someone sent me a link. I've never spoken to or met Mr. LaBeouf ... I actually can't imagine what was going through his mind."
Legal representatives of Clowes also sent a cease-and-desist letter to LaBeouf concerning another tweet stating he intended to make a second film plagiarizing Clowes.
OK Soda
In 1993 and 1994, Clowes created artwork for Coca-Cola's Generation X-inspired beverage OK Soda, which was test-marketed in select American cities in 1994 and 1995 and then discontinued. His art appeared on cans, bottles, twelve-pack cases, posters, vending machines, and other merchandise, along with point-of sale display items. Clowes's art appears on two cans/bottles (the face of a young man looking forward; the face of a young woman looking forward), though he is often incorrectly credited for other OK can art.
Illustrations
Clowes has illustrated over 25 LP, EP, and CD covers, including Everything Looks Better in the Dark (1987) by Frank French and Kevn Kinney, Thee Headcoats' Heavens to Murgatroyd, Even! It's Thee Headcoats! (Already), and the Supersuckers album The Smoke of Hell (1992).
His art appeared on a skateboard deck for Santa Cruz Skateboards (1991 – it was reissued in black and white in 2006).
His artwork can be seen in the Ramones video for their Tom Waits cover "I Don't Want to Grow Up" (1994).
An OK Soda vending machine with Clowes art appears in several shots in Christopher Guest's mockumentary Waiting for Guffman (1997).
He created the movie poster for Todd Solondz's film Happiness (1998).
He drew the cover for Encounter Briefs, a fictional comic book featured in Greg Mottola's film Paul (2011).
He drew covers and booklet art for the Criterion Collection's releases of Samuel Fuller's films Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss (2011).
He drew the key art for Season 4 of the HBO series Silicon Valley (2017).
Selected works
Comic books
Lloyd Llewellyn #1–6 (1986–1987) and a special (1988).
Eightball #1–23 (1989–2004).
Graphic novels
Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron (Fantagraphics, 1993). Clowes's first graphic novel, this volume collects ten chapters serialized in Eightball #1–10. A surreal narrative partially based on Clowes's dreams, it tells the story of Clay Loudermilk, an alienated young man who searches for his ex-wife after seeing her in a fetish film.
Pussey!: The Complete Saga of Young Dan Pussey (Fantagraphics, 1995). This collection features Dan Pussey stories that first appeared in Eightball. A satire of the superhero comics industry, it chronicles the life of the title character from his boyhood dreams of being a famous comic-book artist, to success drawing superhero stories, and finally to a rapid fall into obscurity.
Ghost World (Fantagraphics, 1997). This graphic novel collects the Ghost World chapters from Eightball #11–18. On the first paperback edition's back cover, Clowes includes a brief synopsis: "Ghost World is the story of Enid and Rebecca, teenage friends facing the unwelcome prospect of adulthood and the uncertain future of their complicated relationship." The cartoonist's breakthrough and best-selling work, it has been translated into seventeen languages.
David Boring (Pantheon Books, 2000). This volume collects David Boring Acts 1–3 from Eightball #19–21. The comic's elaborately plotted narrative explores the title character's search for the perfect woman and his effort to learn about his missing father.
Ice Haven (Pantheon, 2005). First appearing in Eightball #22, Ice Haven was revised and reformatted for the 2005 collection, with new chapters and redrawn art. Featuring a fictional Midwestern town and a large cast of main characters, the story centers on David Goldberg's kidnapping and the strained interactions of the town's inhabitants.
Wilson (Drawn and Quarterly, 2010). Wilson is Clowes's first non-serialized graphic novel. Set in Oakland, California, it tells the story of Wilson, a confrontational misanthrope who desires a deep connection with other people, but whose aggressive interpersonal style thwarts such relationships.
Mister Wonderful (Pantheon Books, 2011). Called "a midlife romance" by Clowes, this volume is an expanded and reformatted collection of a story first serialized in The New York Times Magazine in 2007 and 2008. It won a 2008 Eisner Award for Best Short Story for the serialized version.
The Death-Ray (Drawn and Quarterly, 2011). Clowes's long-form superhero story, The Death-Ray first appeared in Eightball #23. A formally complex narrative, it recounts the story of Andy, who acquires super-powers and a death ray that he uses, according to the back cover, "in defense of the righteous".
Patience (Fantagraphics, 2016). Clowes's longest graphic novel, the book is described by the publisher as "a psychedelic science-fiction love story, veering with uncanny precision from violent destruction to deeply personal tenderness in a way that is both quintessentially 'Clowesian' and utterly unique in the author's body of work."
Monica, a multi-genre exploration of a woman's life and cults, conspiracy theories, and the mid-20th century
Anthologies
#$@&!: The Official Lloyd Llewellyn Collection (Fantagraphics, 1989). Clowes's first anthology, this paperback volume collects thirteen stories from the seven Lloyd Llewellyn comics.
Lout Rampage! (Fantagraphics, 1991). This paperback includes stories from Eightball #1–6, along with strips Clowes created for alternative comics anthologies Blab!, Young Lust, and Weirdo.
The Manly World of Lloyd Llewellyn: A Golden Treasury of His Complete Works (Fantagraphics, 1994). Clowes's only hardcover anthology, this volume collects all of the Llewellyn stories from the seven Lloyd Llewellyn comics, early Eightball issues, Love & Rockets #13, and elsewhere.
Orgy Bound (Fantagraphics, 1996). This anthology collects stories from Eightball #7–16, along with one-page strips from Details magazine and National Lampoon.
Caricature (Fantagraphics, 1998). Subtitled "Nine Stories", Caricature collects comics from Eightball #13–18, along with "Green Eyeliner", the first comic to appear in Esquires annual fiction issue, commissioned by editor Dave Eggers.
Twentieth Century Eightball (Fantagraphics, 2002). Focusing on short humor comics, this collection reprints some of the cartoonist's most well-known work, such as "Art School Confidential" and "Ugly Girls". It won a Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work in 2003.
Ghost World: Special Edition (Fantagraphics, 2008). This hardcover collects the Ghost World graphic novel and screenplay, along with other related material.
The Complete Eightball, #1–#18 (Fantagraphics, 2015). This two-volume hardcover set reprints the first eighteen issues of Clowes's comic-book series.
Other appearances
"Justin M. Damiano" in The Book of Other People (2008)
Movies
Ghost World (2001)
Art School Confidential (2006)
Wilson (2017)
Miscellaneous
Cracked – recurring strip "The Uggly Family" (1986–1989)
Thee Headcoats – Heavens To Murgatroyd, Even! It's Thee Headcoats! (Already) cover (1990)
Santa Cruz Skateboards – Corey O'Brien full-color deck (1991 – reissued in 2006 in black and white)
National Lampoon – series of one-page strips (1991)
Urge Overkill – The Supersonic Storybook cover (1991)
The Supersuckers – The Smoke of Hell cover (1992)
Eightball postcard set (1993)
"Boredom" – a mock board game (1994)
The John Peel Sub Pop Sessions cover (1994)
Ghost World: A Screenplay (2001)
Little Enid Doll (2001–2002) – five versions
Enid & Rebecca Cloth Dolls (2002)
Yo La Tengo – Merry Christmas from Yo La Tengo cover (2002)
Enid Hi-Fashion Glamour Doll (2004)
Pogeybait Doll (2006)
Art School Confidential: A Screenplay (2006)
The New Yorker cover (May 24, 2010)
Dan DeBono's Indy – created original cover and interviewed
Commercial work
OK Soda – Clowes was one of the main illustrators for OK Soda cans and print materials, along with fellow Fantagraphics artist Charles Burns.
References
External links
Daniel Clowes Bibliography: The most detailed site on the web for information on Clowes and his work by Ken Parille.
Daniel Clowes at Fantagraphics: The publisher's page with biography.
Outer-Court: Biography & discussion of Clowes's comics and characters.
BBC Collective: Interview and Ice Haven screensaver.
Girls' world – The Guardian, November 3, 2001: Interview with Clowes around the release of the Ghost World movie.
2011 radio interview at The Bat Segundo Show
rcn.com Comic Book Awards Almanac
Guide to the Daniel Clowes Archive 2000-2014 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
1961 births
Alternative cartoonists
American cartoonists
American comics artists
American comics writers
American graphic novelists
Comic book letterers
Eisner Award winners for Best Writer/Artist
Harvey Award winners for Best Writer
Harvey Award winners for Best Cartoonist
Independent Spirit Award winners
Inkpot Award winners
Living people
The New Yorker cartoonists
The New Yorker people
Pratt Institute alumni
University of Chicago Laboratory Schools alumni
Writers from Chicago
Writers from the San Francisco Bay Area
Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area
Jewish American artists
Jewish American writers
American male novelists
Novelists from Illinois
Writers who illustrated their own writing |
422247 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness | Self-awareness | In philosophy of self, self-awareness is the experience of one's own personality or individuality. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While consciousness is being aware of one's body and environment, self-awareness is the recognition of that consciousness. Self-awareness is how an individual experiences and understands their own character, feelings, motives, and desires.
Biology
Mirror neurons
Researchers are investigating which part of the brain allows people to be self-aware and how people are biologically programmed to be self-aware. V.S. Ramachandran speculates that mirror neurons may provide the neurological basis of human self-awareness. In an essay written for the Edge Foundation in 2009, Ramachandran gave the following explanation of his theory: "[T]hese neurons can not only help simulate other people's behavior but can be turned 'inward'—as it were—to create second-order representations or meta-representations of your own earlier brain processes. This could be the neural basis of introspection, and of the reciprocity of self awareness and other awareness. There is obviously a chicken-or-egg question here as to which evolved first, but... The main point is that the two co-evolved, mutually enriching each other to create the mature representation of self that characterizes modern humans."
Body
Bodily (self-)awareness is related to proprioception and visualization.
Health
In health and medicine, body awareness refers to a person's ability to direct their focus on various internal sensations accurately. Both proprioception and interoception allow individuals to be consciously aware of multiple sensations. Proprioception allows individuals and patients to focus on sensations in their muscles and joints, posture, and balance, while interoception is used to determine sensations of the internal organs, such as fluctuating heartbeat, respiration, lung pain, or satiety. Over-acute body-awareness, under-acute body-awareness, and distorted body-awareness are symptoms present in a variety of health disorders and conditions, such as obesity, anorexia nervosa, and chronic joint pain. For example, a distorted perception of satiety present in a patient suffering from anorexia nervosa.
Human development
Bodily self-awareness in human development refers to one's awareness of one's body as a physical object with physical properties that can interact with other objects. At only a few months old, toddlers know the relationship between the proprioceptive and visual information they receive. This is called "first-person self-awareness".
By around 18 months of age, children begin to develop reflective self-awareness, which is the next stage of bodily awareness. It involves children recognizing themselves in reflections, mirrors, and pictures. Children who have not obtained this stage of bodily self-awareness tend to view reflections of themselves as other children and respond accordingly, as if they were looking at someone else face to face. In contrast, those who reach this level of awareness recognize that they see themselves, for instance, seeing dirt on their face in the reflection and then touching their face to wipe it off.
Soon after toddlers become reflectively self-aware, they begin to recognize their bodies as physical objects in time and space that interact and impact other objects. For instance, a toddler placed on a blanket, when asked to hand someone the blanket, will recognize that they need to get off it to be able to lift it. This is the final stage of body self-awareness and is called objective self-awareness.
Non-human animals
"Mirror tests" have been done on chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins and magpies. During the test, the experimenter looks for the animals to undergo four stages:
social response (behaving toward the reflection as they would toward another animal of their species)
physical mirror inspection
repetitive mirror testing behavior, and
the mark test, which involves the animals spontaneously touching a mark on their body that would have been difficult to see without the mirror
The red-spot technique, created by Gordon G. Gallup, studies self-awareness in primates. This technique places a red odorless spot on an anesthetized primate's forehead. The spot is placed on the forehead so it can only be seen through a mirror. Once the primate awakens, its independent movements toward the spot after it sees its reflection in a mirror are observed.
Apes
Chimpanzees and other apes—extensively studied species—are most similar to humans, with the most convincing findings and straightforward evidence of self-awareness in animals.
Chimpanzees
During the red-spot technique, after looking in the mirror, chimpanzees used their fingers to touch the red dot on their forehead and, after touching the red dot they would smell their fingertips. "Animals that can recognize themselves in mirrors can conceive of themselves," says Gallup.
Dolphins
Dolphins were put to a similar test and achieved the same results. Diana Reiss, a psycho-biologist at the New York Aquarium discovered that bottlenose dolphins can recognize themselves in mirrors.
Elephants
Three elephants were exposed to large mirrors and experimenters studied their reactions when the elephants saw their reflections. These elephants were given the "litmus mark test" to see whether they were aware of what they were looking at. This visible mark was applied on the elephants and the researchers reported large progress with self-awareness.
Magpies
Researchers also used the mark or mirror tests to study the magpie's self-awareness. As a majority of birds are blind below the beak, Prior et al. marked the birds' neck with three different colors: red, yellow, and black (as an imitation, as magpies are originally black). When placed in front of a mirror, the birds with red and yellow spots began scratching at their necks, signaling the understanding of something different being on their bodies. During one trial with a mirror and a mark, three of the five magpies showed at least one example of self-directed behavior. The magpies explored the mirror by moving toward it and looking behind it. One of the magpies, Harvey, during several trials would pick up objects, pose, do some wing-flapping, all in front of the mirror with the objects in his beak. This represents a sense of self-awareness; knowing what is going on within himself and in the present. The authors suggest that self-recognition in birds and mammals may be a case of convergent evolution, where similar evolutionary pressures result in similar behaviors or traits, although they arrive at them via different routes.
A few slight occurrences of behavior towards the magpie's own body happened in the trial with the black mark and the mirror. The authors of this study suggest that the black mark may have been slightly visible on the black feathers. "This is an indirect support for the interpretation that the behavior towards the mark region was elicited by seeing the own body in the mirror in conjunction with an unusual spot on the body."
There was a clear contrast between the behaviors of the magpies when a mirror was present versus absent. In the no-mirror trials, a non-reflective gray plate was swapped in the same size and position as the mirror. There were not any mark-directed self-behaviors when the mark was present, in color or in black. The results show that magpies understand that a mirror image represents their own body; magpies have self-awareness.
Three "types" of self-awareness
David DeGrazia states that there are three types of self-awareness in animals:
Bodily self-awareness This allows animals to understand that they are different from the rest of the environment. It is also the reason why animals do not eat themselves. Bodily-awareness also includes proprioception and sensation.
Social self-awareness This is seen in highly social animals and is the awareness that allows animals to interact with each other.
Introspective self-awareness This is how animals understand feelings, desires, and beliefs.
Cooperation and evolutionary problems
An organism can be effectively altruistic without being self-aware, aware of any distinction between egoism and altruism, or aware of qualia in others. It can do this via simple reactions to specific situations that benefit other individuals in the organism's environment. If self-awareness led to a necessity of an emotional empathy mechanism for altruism and egoism being default in its absence, that would have precluded evolution from a state without self-awareness to a self-aware state in all social animals. The ability of the theory of evolution to explain self-awareness can be rescued by abandoning the hypothesis of self-awareness being a basis for cruelty.
Psychology
Self-awareness has been called "arguably the most fundamental issue in psychology, from both a developmental and an evolutionary perspective."
Self-awareness theory, developed by Duval and Wicklund in their 1972 landmark book A theory of objective self awareness, states that when we focus on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our current behavior to our internal standards and values. This elicits a state of objective self-awareness. We become self-conscious as objective evaluators of ourselves. Self-awareness should not be confused with self-consciousness. Various emotional states are intensified by self-awareness. However, some people may seek to increase their self-awareness through these outlets. People are more likely to align their behavior with their standards when they are made self-aware. People are negatively affected if they do not live up to their personal standards. Various environmental cues and situations induce awareness of the self, such as mirrors, an audience, or being videotaped or recorded. These cues also increase the accuracy of personal memory.
In one of Andreas Demetriou's neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development, self-awareness develops systematically from birth through the life span and it general inferential processes. Self-awareness about cognitive processes contributes to general intelligence on a par with processing efficiency functions, such as working memory, processing speed, and reasoning.
Albert Bandura's theory of self-efficacy describes "the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations." A person's belief in their ability to succeed sets the stage for how they think, behave, and feel. Someone with a strong self-efficacy, for example, views challenges as tasks to engage in, and is not easily discouraged by setbacks. Such a person is aware of their flaws and abilities and chooses to utilize these qualities to the best of their ability. Someone with a weak sense of self-efficacy evades challenges and quickly feels discouraged by setbacks. They may not be aware of these negative reactions and therefore, may not be prompted to change their attitude. This concept is central to Bandura's social cognitive theory, "which emphasizes the role of observational learning, social experience, and reciprocal determinism in the development of personality."
Developmental stages
Individuals become conscious of themselves through the development of self-awareness. This particular type of self-development pertains to becoming conscious of one's body and one's state of mind—including thoughts, actions, ideas, feelings, and interactions with others. "Self-awareness does not occur suddenly through one particular behavior: it develops gradually through a succession of different behaviors all of which relate to the self." The monitoring of one's mental states is called metacognition and is considered to be an indicator that there is some concept of the self. It is developed through an early sense of non-self components using sensory and memory sources. In developing self-awareness through self-exploration and social experiences, one can broaden one's social world and become more familiar with the self.
According to Philippe Rochat, there are five levels of self-awareness that unfold in early human development and six potential prospects ranging from "Level 0" (having no self-awareness) advancing complexity to "Level 5" (explicit self-awareness):
Level 0—Confusion The person is unaware of any mirror reflection or the mirroring itself; they perceive a mirror image as an extension of their environment. Level 0 can also be displayed when an adult frightens themself in a mirror, mistaking their own reflection as another person just for a moment.
Level 1—Differentiation The individual realizes the mirror is able to reflect things. They see that what is in the mirror is of a different nature from what is surrounding them. At this level they can differentiate between their own movement in the mirror and the movement of the surrounding environment.
Level 2—Situation The individual can link the movements on the mirror to what is perceived within their own body. This is the first hint of self-exploration on a projected surface where what is visualized on the mirror is special to the self.
Level 3—Identification This stage is characterized by the new ability to identify self: an individual can now see that what's in the mirror is not another person but actually them. This is seen when a child, instead of referring to the mirror while referring to themselves, refers to themselves while looking in the mirror.
Level 4—Permanence Once an individual reaches this level they can identify the self beyond the present mirror imagery. They are able to identify the self in previous pictures looking different or younger. A "permanent self" is now experienced.
Level 5—Self-consciousness or "meta" self-awareness At this level not only is the self seen from a first person view but it is realized that it is also seen from a third person's view. A person who develops self consciousness begins to understand they can be in the mind of others: for instance, how they are seen from a public standpoint.
Infancy and early childhood
When a human infant comes into the world, they have no concept of what is around them, nor the significance of others around them. During their first year they gradually begin to acknowledge that their body is separate from that of their mother, and that they are an "active, causal agent in space". By the end of the first year, they additionally realize that their movement, as well, is separate from the movement of the mother.
At first "the infant cannot recognize its own face". By the time an average toddler reaches 18–24 months, they discover themselves and recognize their own reflection in the mirror, however the exact age varies with differing socioeconomic levels and differences relating to culture and parenting. They begin to acknowledge the fact that the image in front of them, who happens to be them, moves; indicating that they appreciate and can consider the relationship between cause and effect that is happening.
By the age of 24 months the toddler will observe and relate their own actions to actions of other people and the surrounding environment. Once an infant has gotten a lot of experience in front of a mirror, they can recognize themselves in the reflection, and understand that it is them. For example, in a study, an experimenter took a red marker and put a fairly large red dot (so it is visible by the infant) on the infant's nose, and placed them in front of a mirror. Prior to 15 months of age, the infant will not react to this, but after 15 months of age, they will either touch their nose, wondering what it is they have on their face, or point to it. This indicates that they recognize that the image they see in the reflection of the mirror is themselves. A mirror-self recognition task has been used as a research tool for years, and has led to key foundations of the infant's sense/awareness of self. For example, "for Piaget, the objectification of the bodily self occurs as the infant becomes able to represent the body's spatial and causal relationship with the external world". Facial recognition development of self-awareness.
By 18 months of age, an infant can communicate their name to others, and upon being shown a picture they are in, they can identify themselves. By two years old, they also usually acquire gender category and age categories, saying things such as "I am a girl, not a boy" and "I am a baby or child, not a grownup". As an infant moves to middle childhood and onwards to adolescence, they develop more advanced levels of self-awareness and self-description.
As infants develop their senses, using multiple senses of in order to recognize what is around them, infants can become affected by something known as "facial multi stimulation". In one experiment by Filippetti, Farroni, and Johnson, an infant of around five months in age is presented with what is known as an "enfacement illusion". "Infants watched a side-by-side video display of a peer's face being systematically stroked on the cheek with a paintbrush. During the video presentation, the infant's own cheek was stroked in synchrony with one video and in asynchrony with the other". Infants were proven , showing beginning signs of facial recognition cues onto one's self, with the assistance of such an illusion.
Piaget
Around school age, a child's awareness of their memory transitions into a sense of their self. At this stage, a child begins to develop interests, likes, and dislikes. This transition enables a person's awareness of their past, present, and future to grow as they remember their conscious experiences more often. As a preschooler, they begin to give much more specific details about things, instead of generalizing. For example, the preschooler will talk about the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, and the New York Rangers hockey team, instead of the infant just stating that they like sports. Furthermore, they will start to express certain preferences (e.g., Tod likes mac and cheese) and will start to identify certain possessions of theirs (e.g., Lara has a bird as a pet at home). At this age, the infant is in what Piaget names the pre operational stage of development. The infant is very inaccurate at judging themselves because they do not have much to go on. For example, an infant at this stage will not associate that they are strong with their ability to cross the jungle gym at their school, nor will they associate the fact that they can solve a math problem with their ability to count.
Adolescence
One becomes conscious of one's emotions during adolescence. Most children are aware of emotions such as shame, guilt, pride, and embarrassment by the age of two, but do not fully understand how those emotions affect their life. By age 13, children become more in touch with these emotions and begin to apply them to their lives. Many adolescents display happiness and self-confidence around friends, but hopelessness and anger around parents due to the fear . Teenagers feel intelligent and creative around teachers; shy, uncomfortable, and nervous around people they are not familiar with.
In adolescent development, self-awareness has a more complex emotional context than in the early childhood phase. Elements can include self-image, self-concept, and self–consciousness among other traits that relate to Rochat's final level of self awareness, however it is still a distinct concept. Social interactions mainly separate the element of self-awareness in adolescent rather than in childhood, as well as further developed emotional recognition skills in adolescents.
Mental health
As children reach adolescence, their acute sense of emotion has widened into a meta-cognitive state in which mental health issues can become more prevalent due to their heightened emotional and social development. Elements of contextual behavioral science involved with adolescent self-awareness, such as Self-as-Content, Self-as-Process, and Self-as-Context, mental health.
Anger management is also self-awareness in teens. Self-awareness training may reduce anger management issues and reduce aggressive tendencies in adolescents: "Persons having sufficient self-awareness promote relaxation and awareness about themselves and when going angry, at the first step they become aware of anger in their inside and accept it, then try to handle it".
Philosophy
Locke
An early philosophical discussion of self-awareness is that of John Locke. Locke was apparently influenced by René Descartes's statement, normally translated as "I think, therefore I am" (). In Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) he conceptualized consciousness as the repeated self-identification of oneself through which moral responsibility could be attributed to the subject—and therefore punishment and guiltiness justified.
Nietzsche would point out that this affirms "the psychology of conscience... is not 'the voice of God in man'; it is the instinct of cruelty... one of the oldest and most indispensable elements in the foundation of culture."
Locke does not use the terms self-awareness or self-consciousness. According to Locke, personal identity (the self) "depends on consciousness, not on substance". A person is the same person to the extent that the person is conscious of their past and future thoughts and actions in the same way as they are conscious of their present thoughts and actions. If consciousness is this "thought" which doubles all thoughts, then personal identity is only founded on the repeated act of consciousness: "This may show us wherein personal identity consists: not in the identity of substance, but... in the identity of consciousness." For example, one may claim to be a reincarnation of Plato, therefore having the same soul. However, one would be the same person as Plato only if one had the same consciousness of Plato's thoughts and actions that he himself did. Therefore, self-identity is not based on the soul. One soul may have various personalities.
Locke argues that self-identity is not founded either on the body or the substance, as the substance may change while the person remains the same. "Animal identity is preserved in identity of life, and not of substance", as the body of the animal grows and changes during its life. Locke describes a case of a prince and a cobbler in which the soul of the prince is transferred to the body of the cobbler and vice versa. The prince still views himself as a prince, though he no longer looks like one. This border-case leads to the problematic thought that since personal identity is based on consciousness, and that only oneself can be aware of one's consciousness, exterior human judges may never know if they really are judging—and punishing—the same person, or simply the same body. Locke argues that one may be judged for the actions of one's body rather than one's soul, and only God knows how to correctly judge a man's actions. Men also are only responsible for the acts of which they are conscious. This forms the basis of the insanity defense which argues that one cannot be held accountable for acts for which they were unconsciously irrational. In reference to man's personality, Locke claims that "whatever past actions it cannot reconcile or appropriate to that present self by consciousness, it can be no more concerned in, than if they had never been done: and to receive pleasure or pain, i.e. reward or punishment, on the account of any such action, is all one as to be made happy or miserable in its first being, without any demerit at all."
Disorders
The medical term for not being aware of one's deficits is anosognosia, or more commonly known as a lack of insight. Having a lack of awareness raises the risks of treatment and service nonadherence. Individuals who deny having an illness may be against seeking professional help because they are convinced that nothing is wrong with them. Disorders of self-awareness frequently follow frontal lobe damage. There are two common methods used to measure how severe an individual's lack of self-awareness is. The Patient Competency Rating Scale (PCRS) evaluates self-awareness in patients who have endured a traumatic brain injury. PCRS is a 30-item self-report instrument which asks the subject to use a 5-point Likert scale to rate his or her degree of difficulty in a variety of tasks and functions. Independently, relatives or significant others who know the patient well are also asked to rate the patient on each of the same behavioral items. The difference between the relatives' and patient's perceptions is considered an indirect measure of impaired self-awareness. The limitations of this experiment rest on the answers of the relatives. Results of their answers can lead to a bias. This limitation prompted a second method of testing a patient's self-awareness. Simply asking a patient why they are in the hospital or what is wrong with their body can give compelling answers as to what they see and are analyzing.
Anosognosia
Anosognosia was a term coined by Joseph Babinski to describe the clinical condition in which an individual suffered from left hemiplegia following a right cerebral hemisphere stroke yet denied that there were any problems with their left arm or leg. This condition is known as anosognosia for hemiplegia (AHP). This condition has evolved throughout the years and is now used to describe people who lack subjective experience in both neurological and neuropsychological cases. A wide variety of disorders are associated with anosognosia. For example, patients who are blind from cortical lesions might in fact be unaware that they are blind and may state that they do not suffer from any visual disturbances. Individuals with aphasia and other cognitive disorders may also suffer from anosognosia as they are unaware of their deficiencies and when they make certain speech errors, they may not correct themselves due to their unawareness. Individuals who suffer from Alzheimer's disease lack awareness; this deficiency becomes more intense throughout their disease. A key issue with this disorder is that people who do have anosognosia and suffer from certain illnesses may not be aware of them, which ultimately leads them to put themselves in dangerous positions and/or environments. To this day there are still no available treatments for AHP, but it has been documented that temporary remission has been used following vestibular stimulation.
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder or multiple personality disorder (MPD) is a disorder involving a disturbance of identity in which two or more separate and distinct personality states (or identities) control an individual's behavior at different times. One identity may be different from another, and when an individual with DID is under the influence of one of their identities, they may forget their experiences when they switch to the other identity. "When under the control of one identity, a person is usually unable to remember some of the events that occurred while other personalities were in control." They may experience time loss, amnesia, and adopt different mannerisms, attitudes, speech and ideas under different personalities. They are often unaware of the different lives they lead or their condition in general, feeling as though they are looking at their life through the lens of someone else, and even being unable to recognize themselves in a mirror.
Two cases of DID have brought awareness to the disorder, the first case being that of Eve. This patient harbored three different personalities: Eve White the good wife and mother, Eve Black the party girl, and Jane the intellectual. Under stress, her episodes would worsen. She even tried to strangle her own daughter and had no recollection of the act afterward. Eve went through years of therapy before she was able to learn how to control her alters and be mindful of her disorder and episodes. Her condition, being so rare at the time, inspired the book and film adaptation The Three Faces of Eve, as well as a memoir by Eve herself entitled I'm Eve. Doctors speculated that growing up during the Depression and witnessing horrific things being done to other people could have triggered emotional distress, periodic amnesia, and eventually DID. In the second case, Shirley Ardell Mason, or Sybil, was described as having over 16 separate personalities with different characteristics and talents. Her accounts of horrific and sadistic abuse by her mother during childhood prompted doctors to believe that this trauma caused her personalities to split, furthering the unproven idea that this disorder was rooted in child abuse, while also making the disorder famous. In 1998 however, Sybil's case was exposed as a sham. Her therapist would encourage Sybil to act as her other alter ego although she felt perfectly like herself. Her condition was exaggerated in order to seal book deals and television adaptations. Awareness of this disorder began to crumble shortly after this finding. To this day, no proven cause of DID has been found, but treatments such as psychotherapy, medications, hypnotherapy, and adjunctive therapies have proven to be very effective.
Autism spectrum disorder
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a range of neurodevelopmental disabilities that can adversely impact social communication and create behavioral challenges (Understanding Autism, 2003). "Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism are both general terms for a group of complex disorders of brain development. These disorders are characterized, in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors." ASDs can also cause imaginative abnormalities and can range from mild to severe, especially in sensory-motor, perceptual and affective dimensions. Children with ASD may struggle with self-awareness and self acceptance. Their different thinking patterns and brain processing functions in the area of social thinking and actions may compromise their ability to understand themselves and social connections to others. About 75% diagnosed autistics are mentally handicapped in some general way and the other 25% diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome show average to good cognitive functioning. It is well known that children suffering from varying degrees of autism struggle in social situations. Scientists at the University of Cambridge have produced evidence that self-awareness is a main problem for people with ASD. Researchers used functional magnetic resonance scans (FMRI) to measure brain activity in volunteers being asked to make judgments about their own thoughts, opinions, preferences, as well as about someone else's. One area of the brain closely examined was the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex (vMPFC) which is known to be active when people think about themselves.
A study out of Stanford University has tried to map out brain circuits with understanding self-awareness in Autism Spectrum Disorders. This study suggests that self-awareness is primarily lacking in social situations but when in private they are more self-aware and present. It is in the company of others while engaging in interpersonal interaction that the self-awareness mechanism seems to fail. Higher functioning individuals on the ASD scale have reported that they are more self-aware when alone unless they are in sensory overload or immediately following social exposure. Self-awareness dissipates when an autistic is faced with a demanding social situation. This theory suggests that this happens due to the behavioral inhibitory system which is responsible for self-preservation. This is the system that prevents human from self-harm like jumping out of a speeding bus or putting our hand on a hot stove. Once a dangerous situation is perceived then the behavioral inhibitory system kicks in and restrains our activities. "For individuals with ASD, this inhibitory mechanism is so powerful, it operates on the least possible trigger and shows an over sensitivity to impending danger and possible threats. Some of these dangers may be perceived as being in the presence of strangers, or a loud noise from a radio. In these situations self-awareness can be compromised due to the desire of self preservation, which trumps social composure and proper interaction.
The Hobson hypothesis reports that autism begins in infancy due to a lack of cognitive and linguistic engagement, which results in impaired reflective self-awareness. In this study ten children with Asperger Syndrome were examined using the Self-understanding Interview. This interview was created by Damon and Hart and focuses on seven core areas or schemas that measure the capacity to think in increasingly difficult levels. This interview will estimate the level of self understanding present. "The study showed that the Asperger group demonstrated impairment in the 'self-as-object' and 'self-as-subject' domains of the Self-understanding Interview, which supported Hobson's concept of an impaired capacity for self-awareness and self-reflection in people with ASD." Self-understanding is a self description in an individual's past, present and future. Without self-understanding it is reported that self-awareness is lacking in people with ASD.
Joint attention (JA) was developed as a teaching strategy to help increase positive self-awareness in those with autism spectrum disorder. JA strategies were first used to directly teach about reflected mirror images and how they relate to their reflected image. Mirror Self Awareness Development (MSAD) activities were used as a four-step framework to measure increases in self-awareness in those with ASD. Self-awareness and knowledge is not something that can simply be taught through direct instruction. Instead, students acquire this knowledge by interacting with their environment. Mirror understanding and its relation to the development of self leads to measurable increases in self-awareness in those with ASD. It also proves to be a highly engaging and highly preferred tool in understanding the developmental stages of self- awareness.
There have been many different theories and studies done on what degree of self-awareness is displayed among people with autism spectrum disorder. Scientists have done research about the various parts of the brain associated with understanding self and self-awareness. Studies have shown evidence of areas of the brain that are impacted by ASD. Other theories suggest that helping an individual learn more about themselves through Joint Activities, such as the Mirror Self Awareness Development may help teach positive self-awareness and growth. In helping to build self-awareness it is also possible to build self-esteem and self acceptance. This in turn can help to allow the individual with ASD to relate better to their environment and have better social interactions with others.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric illness characterized by excessive dopamine activity in the mesolimbic tract and insufficient dopamine activity in the mesocortical pathway, leading to symptoms of psychosis along with poor cognition in socialization. Under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, people with schizophrenia have a combination of positive, negative and psychomotor symptoms. These cognitive disturbances involve rare beliefs and/or thoughts of a distorted reality that creates an abnormal pattern of functioning for the patient. The cause of schizophrenia has a substantial genetic component involving many genes. While the heritability of schizophrenia has been found to be around 80%, only about 40% of sufferers report a positive family history of the disorder, and ultimately the cause is thought to be a combination of genetic and environmental factors. It is believed that the experience of stressful life events is an environmental factor that can trigger the onset of schizophrenia in individuals who already are at risk from genetics and age. The level of self-awareness among patients with schizophrenia is a heavily studied topic.
Schizophrenia as a disease state is characterized by severe cognitive dysfunction and it is uncertain to what extent patients are aware of this deficiency. Medalia and Lim (2004) investigated patients' awareness of their cognitive deficit in the areas of attention, nonverbal memory, and verbal memory. Results from this study (N=185) revealed large discrepancy in patients' assessment of their cognitive functioning relative to the assessment of their clinicians. Though it is impossible to access one's consciousness and truly understand what a schizophrenic believes, regardless in this study, patients were not aware of their cognitive dysfunctional reasoning. In the DSM-5, to receive a diagnosis of schizophrenia, they must have two or more of the following symptoms in the duration of one month: delusions*, hallucinations*, disorganized speech*, grossly disorganized/catatonic behavior and negative symptoms (*these three symptoms above all other symptoms must be present to correctly diagnose a patient.) Sometimes these symptoms are very prominent and are treated with a combination of antipsychotics (i.e. haloperidol, loxapine), atypical antipsychotics (such as clozapine and risperidone) and psychosocial therapies that include family interventions and socials skills. When a patient is undergoing treatment and recovering from the disorder, the memory of their behavior is present in a diminutive amount; thus, self-awareness of diagnoses of schizophrenia after treatment is rare, as well as subsequent to onset and prevalence in the patient.
The above findings are further supported by a study conducted by Amador and colleagues. The study suggests a correlation exists between patient insight, compliance, and disease progression. Investigators assess insight of illness was assessed via Scale to Assess Unawareness of Mental Disorder and was used along with rating of psychopathology, course of illness, and compliance with treatments in a sample of 43 patients. Patients with poor insight are less likely to be compliant with treatment and are more likely to have a poorer prognosis. Patients with hallucinations sometimes experience positive symptoms, which can include delusions of reference, thought insertion/withdrawal, thought broadcast, delusions of persecution, grandiosity, and many more. These psychoses skew the patient's perspectives of reality in ways in which they truly believe are really happening. For instance, a patient that is experiencing delusions of reference may believe while watching the weather forecast that when the weatherman says it will rain, he is really sending a message to the patient in which rain symbolizes a specific warning completely irrelevant to what the weather is. Another example would be thought broadcast, which is when a patient believes that everyone can hear their thoughts. These positive symptoms sometimes are so severe to where the schizophrenic believes that something is crawling on them or smelling something that is not there in reality. These strong hallucinations are intense and difficult to convince the patient that they do not exist outside of their cognitive beliefs, making it extremely difficult for a patient to understand and become self-aware that what they are experiencing is in fact not there.
Furthermore, a study by Bedford and Davis (2013) was conducted to look at the association of denial vs. acceptance of multiple facets of schizophrenia (self-reflection, self-perception, and insight) and its effect on self-reflection (N=26). Study results suggest patients with increased disease denial have lower recollection for self-evaluated mental illnesses. To a great extent, disease denial creates a hardship for patients to undergo recovery because their feelings and sensations are intensely outstanding. But just as this and the above studies imply, a large proportion of schizophrenics do not have self-awareness of their illness for many factors and severity of reasoning of their diagnoses.
Bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder is an illness that causes shifts in mood, energy, and ability to function. Self-awareness is crucial in those suffering from this disease, as they must be able to distinguish between feeling a certain way because of the disorder or because of separate issues. "Personality, behavior, and dysfunction affect your bipolar disorder, so you must 'know' yourself in order to make the distinction." This disorder is a difficult one to diagnose, as self-awareness changes with mood. "For instance, what might appear to you as confidence and clever ideas for a new business venture might be a pattern of grandiose thinking and manic behavior". Issues occur between understanding irrationality in a mood swing and being completely wrapped in a manic episode, rationalizing that the exhibited behaviors are normal.
It is important to be able to distinguish what are symptoms of bipolar disorder and what is not. A study done by Mathew et al. was done with the aim of "examining the perceptions of illness in self and among other patients with bipolar disorder in remission".
The study took place at the Department of Psychiatry, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India, which is a centre that specializes in the "management of patients with mental and behavioural disorders". Eighty two patients (thirty two female and fifty male) agreed to partake in the study. These patients met the "International Classification of Diseases – 10 diagnostic criteria for a diagnosis of bipolar disorder I or II and were in remission" and were put through a variety of baseline assessments before beginning the study. These baseline assessments included using a vignette, which was then used as an assessment tool during their follow-up. Patients were then randomly divided into two groups, one who would be following a "structured educational intervention programme" (experimental group), while the other would be following "usual care" (control group).
The study was based on an interview in which patients were asked an array of open-ended questions regarding topics such as "perceived causes, consequences, severity and its effects on body, emotion, social network and home life, and on work, severity, possible course of action, help-seeking behaviour and the role of the doctor/healer". The McNemar test was then used to compare the patients perspective of the illness versus their explanation of the illness. The results of the study show that the beliefs that patients associated with their illness corresponds with the possible causes of the disorder, whereas "studies done among patients during periods of active psychosis have recorded disagreement between their assessments of their own illness". This ties in to how difficult self-awareness is within people who suffer from bipolar disorder.
Although this study was done on a population that were in remission from the disease, the distinction between patients during "active psychosis" versus those in remission shows the evolution of their self-awareness throughout their journey to recovery.
Plants
Self-discrimination in plants is found within their roots, tendrils and flowers that avoid themselves but not others in their environment.
Self-incompatibility mechanism providing evidence for self-awareness in plants
Self-awareness in plants is a fringe topic in the field of self-awareness, and is researched predominantly by botanists. The claim that plants are capable of perceiving self lies in the evidence found that plants will not reproduce with themselves due to a gene selecting mechanism. In addition, vining plants have been shown to avoid coiling around themselves, due to chemical receptors in the plants' tendrils. Unique to plants, awareness of self means that the plant can recognise self, whereas all other known conceptions of self-awareness involve or are centered on the ability to recognise what is not self.
Recognition and rejection of self in plant reproduction
Research by June B. Nasrallah discovered that the plant's pollination mechanism also serves as a mechanism against self-reproduction, which lays out the foundation of scientific evidence that plants could be considered as self-aware organisms. The SI (Self-incompatibility) mechanism in plants is unique in the sense that awareness of self derives from the capacity to recognise self, rather than non-self. The SI mechanism function depends primarily on the interaction between genes S-locus receptor protein kinase (SRK) and S-locus cysteine-rich protein gene (SCR). In cases of self-pollination, SRK and SCR bind to activate SKR, Inhibiting pollen from fertilizing. In cases of cross-pollination, SRK and SCR do not bind and therefore SRK is not activated, causing the pollen to fertilise. In simple terms, the receptors either accept or reject the genes present in the pollen, and when the genes are from the same plant, the SI mechanism described above creates a reaction to prevent the pollen from fertilising.
Self-discrimination in the tendrils of the vine Cayratia japonica mediated by physiological connection
The research by Yuya Fukano and Akira Yamawo provides a link between self-discrimination in vining plants and amongst other classifications where the mechanism discovery has already been established. It also contributes to the general foundation of evidence of self-discrimination mechanisms in plants. The article makes the claim that the biological self-discrimination mechanism that is present in both flowering plants and ascidians, are also present in vining plants. They tested this hypothesis by doing touch tests with self neighbouring and non-self neighbouring pairs of plants. the test was performed by placing the sets of plants close enough for their tendrils to interact with one-another. Evidence of self-discrimination in above-ground plants is demonstrated in the results of the touch testing, which showed that in cases of connected self plants, severed self plants and non-self plants, the rate of tendril activity and likeliness to coil was higher among separated plants than those attached via rhizomes.
Theater
Theater also concerns itself with other awareness besides self-awareness. There is a possible correlation between the experience of the theater audience and individual self-awareness. As actors and audiences must not "break" the fourth wall in order to maintain context, so individuals must not be aware of the artificial, or the constructed perception of his or her reality. This suggests that both self-awareness and the social constructs applied to others are artificial continuums just as theater is. Theatrical efforts such as Six Characters in Search of an Author, or The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, construct yet another layer of the fourth wall, but they do not destroy the primary illusion.
Science fiction
In science fiction, self-awareness describes an essential human property that often (depending on the circumstances of the story) bestows personhood onto a non-human. If a computer, alien or other object is described as "self-aware", the reader may assume that it will be treated as a completely human character, with similar rights, capabilities and desires to a normal human being. The words "sentience", "sapience" and "consciousness" are used in similar ways in science fiction.
Robotics
In order to be "self-aware", robots can use internal models to simulate their own actions.
See also
Self-concept
Self-reflection
Vertiginous question
References
External links
Concepts in epistemology
Concepts in metaphysics
Concepts in the philosophy of mind
Metaphysics of mind
Personhood |
422269 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact%20%281997%20American%20film%29 | Contact (1997 American film) | Contact is a 1997 American science fiction drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis, based on the 1985 novel by Carl Sagan. Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film. It stars Jodie Foster as Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact. It also stars Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, John Hurt, Angela Bassett, Rob Lowe, Jake Busey, and David Morse. It features the Very Large Array in New Mexico, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the Mir space station, and the Space Coast surrounding Cape Canaveral.
Sagan and Druyan began working on Contact in 1979. They wrote a film treatment over 100 pages long and set up the project at Warner Bros. with Peter Guber and Lynda Obst as producers. When development stalled, Sagan published Contact as a novel in 1985, and the film reentered development in 1989. Roland Joffé and George Miller had planned to direct, but Joffé dropped out in 1993, and Warner Bros. fired Miller in 1995. With Zemeckis as director, filming ran from September 1996 to February 1997. Sony Pictures Imageworks handled most of the visual effects.
Contact was released on July 11, 1997, and grossed over $171 million worldwide. It won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and several Saturn Awards.
Plot
Dr. Ellie Arroway works for the SETI program at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. She was inspired to pursue a career in science, starting with amateur radio, by her father, who died in her youth. Her work involves listening to radio emissions from space in the hopes of finding signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life. The program loses funding after David Drumlin, the President's science advisor, deems it futile. However, Arroway receives financial support from S. R. Hadden, the secretive billionaire industrialist who runs Hadden Industries, which enables her to keep working at the Very Large Array in New Mexico.
Four years later, when Drumlin is about to terminate the SETI program at the VLA, Arroway discovers a signal containing a sequence of prime numbers that appears to have originated from the star Vega. This announcement leads Drumlin and the National Security Council, headed by Michael Kitz, to attempt to seize control of the facility. Upon further investigation, Arroway's team discovers a video hidden within the signal: Adolf Hitler's opening address at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. Arroway and her team believe this transmission would have been the first to have been strong enough to penetrate the Earth's ionosphere, travel to Vega, and then be sent back to Earth.
The project is put under tight security, and its progress is monitored around the world. Arroway discovers the signal contains over 63,000 pages of encoded data. Hadden meets with Arroway and provides her with the means to decode the pages. The decoded data reveals schematics for a Machine that may be a form of transportation for a single individual. Multiple nations provide funding for the construction of the Machine, which is built at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. An international panel will select a candidate to travel in the Machine. Arroway is a leading candidate until Christian philosopher Palmer Joss, a member of the panel whom she briefly had a romantic relationship with in Puerto Rico, draws attention to her atheism. This makes the panel select Drumlin, for supposedly being a better representation of humanity (despite having never professed any faith prior). During the first tests, a religious terrorist destroys the Machine with a bomb, killing Drumlin and several others.
Hadden, now residing on the Mir space station and dying of cancer, reveals to Arroway that the U.S. government had secretly contracted his company to build a second Machine in Japan. Arroway, the only American remaining among the candidate pool, will be the one to go. Equipped with multiple recording devices, Arroway enters a pod, which is dropped into the Machine and seemingly travels through various wormholes. Arroway observes a radio array-like structure at Vega, signs of civilization on an alien planet, and a celestial event that makes her ecstatic. She then finds herself on a beach, similar to a childhood drawing she made of Pensacola, Florida. A figure approaches, taking on the appearance of her deceased father, whom Arroway recognizes as an alien. Humanity contacted his people through our radio emissions and were judged a species worthy of being shown a first step into the cosmos.
Arroway loses consciousness, and upon regaining it finds herself lying in the pod, while the mission control team repeatedly tries to contact her. She learns that from the outside, the Machine only appears to have dropped the pod into a safety net. Arroway insists that she was gone for about 18 hours, but her recording devices show only static noise. A Congressional Committee headed by Kitz is convened, who speculates that the signal and machine were a hoax designed by Hadden, who has since passed away. Arroway requests that the committee accept the truth of her testimony on faith, declaring that while her testimony cannot be proven scientifically, it has impacted her humanity. In a private conversation, Kitz and White House official Rachel Constantine discuss the confidential information that although Arroway's recording device only recorded static, it recorded approximately 18 hours of it. Arroway reunites with Joss, who professes faith in her story, and she receives ongoing financial support for the SETI program at the VLA.
Cast
Jodie Foster as Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Ann Arroway
Jena Malone as young Ellie
Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss
David Morse as Theodore Arroway
Tom Skerritt as Dr. David Drumlin
James Woods as Michael Kitz
John Hurt as S. R. Hadden
William Fichtner as Kent Clarke, a character derived from Kent Cullers
Angela Bassett as Rachel Constantine
Jake Busey as Joseph
Rob Lowe as Richard Rank
Geoffrey Blake as Fisher
Max Martini as Willie
Steven Ford as Major John Russell
Jay Leno as himself
Larry King as himself
Ann Druyan as herself
Production
Development
Carl Sagan conceived the idea for Contact in 1979. That year, Lynda Obst, one of his closest friends, was hired by film producer Peter Guber as a studio executive for his production company, Casablanca FilmWorks. She pitched Guber the idea for Contact, and he commissioned a development deal.
Sagan and Ann Druyan (who were later married) finished their film treatment in November 1980. Druyan explained:
They added the science and religion analogies as a metaphor of philosophical and intellectual interest in searching for the truth of both humanity and alien contact.
Sagan incorporated Kip Thorne's study of wormhole space travel into the screenplay. The characterization of Ellie Arroway was inspired by Jill Tarter, head of Project Phoenix of the SETI Institute; Jodie Foster researched the lead role by meeting her. The name Ellie was short for Eleanor, which was taken from Eleanor Roosevelt whom both Sagan and Druyan adored; Arroway was selected based on both Voltaire's real name (Arouet), and that Ellie "was going to travel like an arrow through the cosmos", according to Druyan. Tarter served as a consultant on the story, realistically portraying career struggles of women scientists from the 1950s to 1970s. The writers debated whether Arroway should have a baby at the film's end. Although Guber was impressed with Sagan and Druyan's treatment, he hired various screenwriters to rewrite the script. New characters were added, one of them a Native American park ranger turned astronaut. Guber suggested that Arroway have an estranged teenage son, whom he believed would add depth to the storyline. Guber said:
Sagan and Druyan disagreed with Guber's idea, and it was not incorporated into the storyline. In 1982, Guber took Contact to Warner Bros. Pictures, and with the film's development stalled, Sagan started to turn his original idea into a novel, which was published by Simon and Schuster in September 1985. The film adaptation remained in development, and Guber eventually vacated his position at Warner Bros. in 1989.
Guber became the new president of Sony Pictures Entertainment and tried to purchase the film rights of Contact from Warner, but the studio refused. Coincidentally, in 1989, Obst was hired as a new executive at Warner and began to fast-track the film by hiring more writers. Roland Joffé was eventually hired to direct, using a screenplay by James V. Hart. Joffé almost commenced pre-production before he dropped out, and Obst then hired Michael Goldenberg to rewrite the script, who finished his second draft in late 1993. Goldenberg's second draft rekindled Warner Bros. interest in Contact, and Robert Zemeckis was offered the chance to direct, but he turned down the opportunity in favor of making a film based on the life of Harry Houdini. Zemeckis recalled:
In December 1993, Warner Bros. hired George Miller to direct, and Contact commenced pre-production. Miller cast Jodie Foster in the lead role, approached Ralph Fiennes to play Palmer Joss and also considered casting Linda Hunt as the President of the United States. In addition to having aliens put on a laser lighting display around Earth, another version of the Goldenberg scripts had an alien wormhole swallow up the planet, transporting Earth to the center of the galaxy. Miller also asked Goldenberg to rewrite Contact in an attempt to portray the Pope as a key supporting character. Warner Bros. was hoping to have the film ready for release by Christmas 1996, but under Miller's direction pre-production lasted longer than expected. The studio fired the director, blaming pushed-back start dates, budget concerns, and Miller's insistence that the script needed five more weeks of rewriting. Robert Zemeckis, who previously turned down the director's position, decided to accept the offer. Warner Bros. granted Zemeckis total artistic control and the right of final cut privilege. The director cast Matthew McConaughey as Palmer Joss; McConaughey dropped out of the lead role in The Jackal to take the role in Contact. Despite being diagnosed with myelodysplasia in 1994, Sagan continued to be involved in the production of the film. For the cast and main crew members, he conducted an academic conference that depicted a detailed history of astronomy.
During the development of Contact, the production crew watched Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) for inspiration.
Filming
Principal photography began on September 24, 1996, and ended on February 28, 1997. The first shooting took place at the Very Large Array (VLA) near Socorro, New Mexico. "Shooting at the VLA was, of course, spectacular but also one of the most difficult aspects of our filming", producer Steve Starkey said. "It is a working facility, so in order for us to accomplish shots for the movie, we had to negotiate with the National Science Foundation for 'dish control' in order to move the dishes in the direction we needed to effect the most dramatic shot for the story." After arduous first weeks of location shooting in New Mexico and Arizona, production for Contact returned to Los Angeles for five months' worth of location and sound stage shooting that used a total of nine soundstages at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, and Culver Studios. All together, the art department created more than 25 sets.
In an attempt to create a sense of realism for the storyline, principal CNN news outlet commentators were scripted into Contact. More than 25 news reporters from CNN had roles in the film, and the CNN programs Larry King Live and Crossfire were also included. Ann Druyan makes a cameo appearance as herself, debating with Rob Lowe's character, Richard Rank, on Crossfire. In January 1997, a second unit was sent to Puerto Rico for one week at the Arecibo Observatory.
Other second unit work took place in Fiji, Saint John, US Virgin Islands and Newfoundland, Canada. Also essential to the production were a host of technical consultants from the SETI Institute, the California Institute of Technology, the VLA and a former White House staff member to consult on Washington, D.C., and government protocol issues. Sagan visited the set a number of times, where he also helped with last-minute rewrites. Filming was briefly delayed with the news of his death on December 20, 1996. Contact was dedicated to Sagan: "For Carl" appears on the screen at the fade.
Cinematographer Don Burgess shot the film in anamorphic format using Panavision cameras, as well as using large-format 65 mm and VistaVision for special effects shots. The sound designers used Pro Tools software for the audio mixing, which was done at Skywalker Sound.
Visual effects
Designing Contacts visual effects sequences was a joint effort by eight VFX companies, including Sony Pictures Imageworks, Peter Jackson's Weta Digital, George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic, and Effects Associates, with Pixar's RenderMan used for CGI rendering. Weta Digital, in particular, was responsible for designing the wormhole sequence. Jodie Foster admitted that she had difficulty with blue screen technology because it was a first for her. "It was a blue room. Blue walls, blue roof. It was just blue, blue, blue", Foster explained. "And I was rotated on a Lazy Susan with the camera moving on a computerized arm. It was really tough."
News footage of then-President Bill Clinton was digitally altered to make it appear as if he is speaking about alien contact. This was not the original plan for the film; Zemeckis had initially approached Sidney Poitier to play the president, but the actor turned the role down in favor of The Jackal. Shortly after Poitier's refusal, Zemeckis saw a NASA announcement in August 1996. "Clinton gave his Mars rock speech", the director explained, "and I swear to God it was like it was scripted for this movie. When he said the line 'We will continue to listen closely to what it has to say', I almost died. I stood there with my mouth hanging open."
One notable feature of Contact is its use of digital color correction. This approach helped solve continuity errors during the location shooting at the Very Large Array in New Mexico. "The weather killed us, so we were going back in and changing it enough so that the skies and colors and times of day all seem roughly the same", commented visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston.
The opening scene is a three-minute computer-generated sequence, beginning with a view of Earth from high in the exosphere and listening in on numerous radio broadcasts emitting from the planet. The camera starts zooming backward, passing the Moon, Mars, and other features of the solar system, then to the Oort cloud, interstellar space, the Local Bubble, the Milky Way, other galaxies of the Local Group, and eventually into deep space. As this occurs, the radio signals start to drop out and reflect older programming, representing the distance these signals would have traveled at the speed of light, eventually becoming silent as the distance becomes much greater. The sequence eventually resolves into the iris of young Ellie's eye as she is listening on her amateur radio base station. The scale-view shot of the entire universe was inspired by the short documentary film Powers of Ten (1977). At the time, it was the longest continuous computer-generated sequence in a live-action film, eventually surpassed by the opening of The Day After Tomorrow (2004).
One sequence, with young Ellie running upstairs to try to retrieve her father's medicine, appears to have Ellie running just behind a camera as they move into the bathroom, but the shot resolves to show that this was part of the medicine cabinet mirror's reflection, pulling back to have Ellie open it. It is noted as one of the film's most impressive visual effects due to the seamlessness of the transition. According to Carin-Anne Strohmaier, first assistant film editor, the shot was created through three different plates and digitally manipulated in CGI to create the effect: one plate was from the cameraman leading Ellie, the second of Ellie opening the cabinet door (which was a blue screen instead of a mirror), and the third of the reflection of the photograph of Ellie and her dad when the door closes.
In the sequence with the death of Ellie's father, they planned to use an effect similar to bullet time from The Matrix to show him stopped in time as he died. As the movie was filmed, they found the approach didn't fit the casting or the direction the film was going. They decided it would be most effective to create something distressing but with Ellie's dad absent from the shot, leading to the development of the mirror sequence.
The decoding of the extraterrestrial message, with its architectural drawings of the machine, was created by Ken Ralston and Sony Pictures Imageworks. It was Zemeckis's and Ralston's sixth film collaboration. Imageworks created more than 350 visual effect shots, using a combination of model and miniature shots and digital graphics. On designing the Machine, Zemeckis said, "The Machine in Sagan's novel was somewhat vague, which is fine for a book. In a movie, though, if you're going to build a giant physical structure of alien design, you have to make it believable... It had to be huge, so that the audience would feel like it was bigger than man should be tinkering with. It had to look absolutely real." The machine was then designed by concept artist Steve Burg, reusing a design he created as a "time-displacement device" for an unused scene in Terminator 2.
Early conceptual designs of the Pod were based, as in the novel, on one of the primary shapes in geometry: a dodecahedron, or a twelve-sided body. Eventually it was modified to a spherical capsule that encased the traveler, with a dodecahedron surrounding the sphere. Zemeckis and the production crew also made several visits to the Kennedy Space Center at Merritt Island adjacent to Cape Canaveral, where officials gave them access to sites off-limits to most visitors. Filmmakers were also brought onto Launch Complex 39 before the launch of the Space Shuttle, where they studied the mechanics of the elevator, gantry area and loading arm for the design of the Machine's surrounding supports and gantry. Once the concept met with the filmmakers' approval, physical construction began on the sets for the Pod, elevator interior and gantry, which took almost four months. The rest of the effects were compiled digitally by Imageworks.
The climactic scene depicting the mysterious beach near the galactic core where Arroway makes contact, in particular, called for major visual innovations. The goal was an idyllic seashore with a sky blazing with stars that might exist near the core of the galaxy. Ralston said that "the thought was that this beach would have a heightened reality. One that might make the everyday world seem like a vague daydream." To keep the question alive whether any of it was real in Arroway's mind, elements such as ocean waves running in reverse and palm tree shadows swaying with sped-up motion were applied.
The Hitler newsreel also required digital manipulation.
Music
The original score was composed by Alan Silvestri, most of which was released on August 19, 1997, by Warner Bros. Records. The full score is approximately an hour long, 44 minutes of which is on the CD, including every major cue. The CD track entitled "Good to Go" features a slightly different opening—a brief brass motif that is not in the film—but all other cues are identical in orchestration to the mix in the film.
The Region 2 Special Edition DVD release contains a 5.1 isolated score track, which presents the complete score (this feature, as with many isolated scores, is not mentioned in most product descriptions of the DVD).
Themes
Contact often suggests that cultural conflicts between religion and science would be brought to the fore by the apparent contact with aliens that occurs in the film. A point of discussion is the existence of God, with several different positions being portrayed. A description of an emotionally intense experience by Palmer Joss, which he describes as seeing God, is met by Arroway's suggestion that "some part of [him] needed to have it"—that it was a significant personal experience but indicative of nothing greater. Joss compares his certainty that God exists to Arroway's certainty that she loved her deceased father, despite her being unable to prove it.
Contact depicts intense debate occurring as a result of the apparent contact with aliens. Many clips of well-known debate shows such as Crossfire and Larry King Live are shown, with participants discussing the implications of the message, asking whether it is proof of the existence of alien life or of God, and whether science is encroaching upon religious ground by, as one believer puts it, "talking to your god for you". The head of a religious organization casts doubt on the morality of building the machine, noting: "We don't even know whether [the aliens] believe in God." The first machine is ultimately destroyed by a religious extremist, in the belief that building it was detrimental to humankind.
Although the revelation at the end of the film that Arroway's recording device recorded approximately 18 hours of noise is arguably conclusive proof of the fact of—if not the experience of—her "journey", several coincidences and indications throughout the film cast doubt on its authenticity. Director Robert Zemeckis indicated: "The point of the movie is for there always to be a certain amount of doubt [as to whether the aliens were real]." These indications consist mostly of visual cues during the "journey" that echo Ellie's experiences earlier in the film (which Ellie believed to be the result of the aliens "downloading [her] thoughts and memories"), but the timing of the message's arrival and its eventual decoding are also highly coincidental: the message was first received shortly before Arroway and her team were to be ejected from the VLA facility and was successfully decoded only by S. R. Hadden (Arroway's only sponsor, who was close to death from cancer) after weeks of failed attempts by the team at the VLA.
At the end of the film, Arroway is put into a position that she had traditionally viewed with skepticism and contempt: that of believing something with complete certainty, despite being unable to prove it in the face of not only widespread incredulity and skepticism (which she admits that as a scientist she would normally share) but also evidence apparently to the contrary.
Zemeckis stated that he intended the message of the film to be that science and religion can coexist rather than being opposing camps, as shown by the coupling of scientist Arroway with the religious Joss, as well as his acceptance that the "journey" indeed took place. This, and scattered references throughout the film, posit that science and religion are not nominally incompatible: one interviewer, after asking Arroway whether the construction of the machine—despite not knowing what will happen when it is activated—is too dangerous, suggests that it is being built on the "faith" that the alien designers, as Arroway puts it, "know what they're doing".
Release and reception
Contacts release in July 1997 rekindled public interest in Sagan's 1985 novel. The book remained on The New York Times Best Seller list from July 27 to September 21, 1997.
Box office
Contact premiered on July 1, 1997, at the Village Theater in Los Angeles, California. It was released in the United States and Canada on July 11, 1997, in 1,923 theaters, earning $20,584,908 in its opening weekend, ranking in second place behind Men in Black. It eventually grossed $100,920,329 in North America and $70,200,000 in foreign countries, reaching a worldwide total of $171,120,329.
Home video
Contact was released on LaserDisc, VHS and the (then new) DVD format in December 1997. Among the special features are three audio commentaries: by director Zemeckis and producer Starkey, by visual effects supervisors Ken Ralston and Stephen Rosenbaum, and by star Jodie Foster. Contact was released on Blu-ray Disc on October 6, 2009.
Critical reception
On the basis of 68 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 68% of critics gave positive reviews, with an average score of 6.9/10. The critical consensus reads, "Contact elucidates stirring scientific concepts and theological inquiry at the expense of satisfying storytelling, making for a brainy blockbuster that engages with its ideas, if not its characters." Metacritic calculated an average score of 62 out of 100, based on 23 reviews, denoting "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert, who gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, said that "Sagan's novel Contact provides the inspiration for Robert Zemeckis' new film, which tells the smartest and most absorbing story about extraterrestrial intelligence since Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). "Movies like Contact help explain why movies like Independence Day leave me feeling empty and unsatisfied", Ebert commented. On December 21, 2011, Ebert added Contact to his "Great Movies" collection.
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said that the film carried a more philosophical portrait of the science fiction genre than did other films, but still managed "to satisfy the cravings of the general public who simply want to be entertained". Internet reviewer James Berardinelli said that Contact is "one of 1997's finest motion pictures, and is a forceful reminder that Hollywood is still capable of making magic". Berardinelli likened its awe and spectacle to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, while adding that "If Contact falls short in any area, it's an inability to fully develop all of its many subplots..." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle largely enjoyed the first 90 minutes of Contact but felt that director Robert Zemeckis was too obsessed with visual effects rather than cohesive storytelling for the pivotal climax.
Rita Kempley, writing in The Washington Post, did not like the film's main premise, which she described as "a preachy debate between sanctity and science".
Awards
Controversies
Bill Clinton
In 1984, a meteorite, thought to be from Mars, was found in Antarctica. Twelve years later, an article by NASA scientist David S. McKay was published in the journal Science, proposing that the meteorite might contain evidence for microscopic fossils of Martian bacteria (later, a disputed interpretation). The announcement made headlines around the world, and the following day, on August 7, 1996, during a press conference about the news, the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, made remarks that were in places sufficiently generic in nature to allow fragments of his videotaped statement to be included in Contact, implying that Clinton was ostensibly speaking about contact with extraterrestrial life, congruent with the film's story:
Later in the film, a separate fragment of generic remarks by President Clinton, speaking about Saddam Hussein and Iraq at a different press conference in October 1994, was lifted out of context and inserted into Contact:
On July 14, 1997, three days after the film opened in the United States, Warner Bros. received a letter from White House Counsel Charles Ruff protesting against the use of Clinton's digitally-composited appearance. The letter made no demands, but called the duration and manner of Clinton's appearance "inappropriate". No legal action was planned; the White House Counsel simply wanted to send a message to Hollywood to avoid unauthorized uses of the President's image. Zemeckis was reminded that official White House policy "prohibits the use of the President in any way ... (that) implies a direct ... connection between the President and a commercial product or service".
A Warner Bros. spokeswoman explained: "We feel we have been completely frank and upfront with the White House on this issue. They saw scripts, they were notified when the film was completed, they were sent a print well in advance of the film's July 11 opening, and we have confirmation that a print was received there July 2." However, Warner Bros. did concede that they never pursued or received formal release from the White House for the use of Clinton's image. While the Counsel commented that parody and satire are protected under the First Amendment, press secretary Mike McCurry believed that "there is a difference when the President's image, which is his alone to control, is used in a way that would lead the viewer to believe he has said something he really didn't say".
CNN
Shortly after the White House's complaint, CNN chairman, president, and CEO Tom Johnson announced he believed that in hindsight it was a mistake to allow 13 members of CNN's on-air staff (including John Holliman, Larry King and Bernard Shaw) to appear in the film, even though both CNN and Warner Bros. are owned by Time Warner. Johnson added that, for Contact, the CNN presence "creates the impression that we're manipulated by Time Warner, and it blurs the line". CNN then changed their policies for future films, which now require potential appearances to be cleared through their ethics group.
Lawsuits
Director George Miller, who had developed Contact with Warner Bros. before Zemeckis' hiring, unsuccessfully sued the studio over breach of contract policies.
During filming on December 28, 1996, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. and Sagan, who had died the previous week. Coppola claimed that Sagan's novel was based on a story the pair had developed for a television special back in 1975, titled First Contact. Under their development agreement, Coppola and Sagan were to split proceeds from the project, as well as from any novel Sagan would write, with American Zoetrope and the Children's Television Workshop. The TV program was never produced, but in 1985, Simon and Schuster published Contact, and Warner moved forward with development of a film adaptation. Coppola sought at least $250,000 in compensatory damages and an injunction against production or distribution of the film.
In February 1998, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ricardo Torres dismissed Coppola's claim. Although Torres agreed that Sagan violated some terms of the contract, he explained that Coppola waited too long to file his lawsuit, and that the contract might not be enforceable as it was written. Coppola then appealed his suit, taking it to the California Courts of Appeal (CCA). In April 2000, the CCA dismissed his suit, finding that Coppola's claims were barred because they were brought too late. The court noted that it was not until 1994 that the filmmaker thought about suing over Contact.
NASA
The scene where the NASA scientists give Arroway the "cyanide pill" caused some controversy during production and when the film came out. Gerald D. Griffin, the film's NASA advisor, insisted that NASA has never given any astronaut a cyanide pill "just in case", and that if an astronaut truly wished to commit suicide in space, all they would have to do is cut off their oxygen supply. However, Carl Sagan insisted that NASA did indeed give out cyanide pills, and they did it for every mission an astronaut has ever flown. Zemeckis said that because of the two radically different assertions, the truth is unknown, but he left the suicide pill scene in the movie, as it seemed more suspenseful that way, and it was also in line with Sagan's beliefs and vision of the film. Along with being NASA Technical Consultant for the project, Griffin had a cameo in the role of "Dynamics" in Mission Control. He was a technical advisor for Ron Howard's 1995 film Apollo 13. While working for NASA during the Apollo Program, he was a flight director for that mission, among others, and in the 1980s was director of the Johnson Space Center.
SETI
SETI.org published a review of the film in 2011, where they gave a side-by-side chart of a few relevant details from the film, and how they differed from reality. One example being that, despite having 27 radio telescopes, the VLA is actually smaller and less sensitive than the Arecibo Observatory—making Arecibo a better location for SETI work, if possibly a less photogenic filming location than the VLA. Despite these small inconsistencies, they maintained that "Contact is indescribably more accurate in its depiction of SETI than any Hollywood film in history."
See also
"The Borderland" (The Outer Limits episode)
List of films featuring extraterrestrials
References
Further reading
Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2nd ed. 2005) pp 69–72.
External links
Cinematography analysis
Visual effects analysis
September 8, 1995 screenplay
In-depth analysis of the realism of the film and novel
SETI Institute - Contact the Movie
On Location: Revisiting Contact - a Tribute to Carl Sagan
1990s American films
1990s science fiction drama films
1997 drama films
1997 films
1997 science fiction films
American science fiction drama films
Cultural depictions of Bill Clinton
1990s English-language films
Films about scientists
Films directed by Robert Zemeckis
Films scored by Alan Silvestri
Films based on science fiction novels
Films set in Florida
Films set in Hokkaido
Films set in New Mexico
Films set in Puerto Rico
Films set in Washington, D.C.
Films set in Wisconsin
Films shot in Arizona
Films shot in Florida
Films shot in New Mexico
Films shot in Puerto Rico
Films shot in Virginia
Films with atheism-related themes
Films about extraterrestrial life
Fiction set around Vega
Films with screenplays by Michael Goldenberg
Films about wormholes
Hard science fiction films
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation winning works
Philosophical fiction
Works by Carl Sagan
Warner Bros. films
Search for extraterrestrial intelligence in film and television
Films produced by Robert Zemeckis |
422272 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian%20Hamilton%20%28British%20Army%20officer%29 | Ian Hamilton (British Army officer) | General Sir Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton, (16 January 1853 – 12 October 1947) was a senior British Army officer who had an extensive British Imperial military career in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Hamilton was twice recommended for the Victoria Cross, but on the first occasion was considered too young, and on the second too senior. He was wounded in action at the Battle of Majuba during the First Boer War, which rendered his left hand permanently injured. Near the end of his career, he commanded the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force in the Gallipoli Campaign of the First World War.
Early life
Hamilton's father was Colonel Christian Monteith Hamilton, former commanding officer of the 92nd Highlanders. His mother Corinna was the daughter of the 3rd Viscount Gort. His mother died giving birth to his brother, Vereker, who became a well-known artist. Hamilton received his early formal education at Wellington College, Berkshire. His father then sent him to stay with General Drammers, a Hanoverian who had fought against Prussia.
Military career
Hamilton attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1870, the first year that entrance to the British Army as an officer was regulated by academic examination rather than by the monetary purchasing of a commission. In 1871 he received a commission as an infantry officer with the Suffolk Regiment, but shortly afterwards transferred to the 2nd Battalion of The Gordon Highlanders, who at that time were on Imperial garrison service in India. On arrival in India Hamilton took part in the Afghan campaign.
During the First Boer War he was present at the Battle of Majuba, where he was wounded and taken prisoner of war by the Boers. He later returned to England to recover, where he was treated as a war hero and introduced to Queen Victoria. In 1882 he was made captain and took part in the Nile Expedition of 1884–1885, being promoted to brevet-major. In Burma 1886–1887 he became brevet lieutenant colonel. In Bengal from 1890 to 1893 held the rank of Colonel and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1891. He took part in the Chitral Expedition as military secretary to Sir George Stuart White, commander in chief of forces in India. From 1895 to 1898 he held the post of Deputy Quarter Master General in India. In 1897–1898 he commanded the third brigade in the Tirah Campaign, where his left arm was wounded by a shell.
He returned to England in April 1898 and was appointed Commandant of the School of Musketry at Hythe.
Second Boer War
Amidst mounting tensions between the United Kingdom and the Boer republics in South Africa Lieutenant General White was dispatched to take command in Natal in September 1899, with Hamilton accompanying him as Chief Staff Officer (Assistant Adjutant General). The Second Boer War broke out shortly after their arrival and Hamilton commanded the infantry at the Battle of Elandslaagte. At the Battle of Ladysmith Hamilton continued to lead his brigade-sized column, but played no role in the fighting. Defeated in the field, White's Natal Field Force was besieged in Ladysmith from the beginning of November. Hamilton was given command of the southern sector of the town's defences and successfully fought off the only major assault on the garrison at the Battle of Wagon Hill in January. For his part in the siege, he was frequently mentioned in despatches.
After the relief of Ladysmith in February Hamilton took command of a brigade of Mounted Infantry, and from April the Mounted Infantry Division. He was promoted to major general, and knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB). The war correspondent Winston Churchill told of his campaign from Bloemfontein to Pretoria in Ian Hamilton's March (London, 1900, reprinted as the second half of The Boer War), having first met Hamilton in 1897 when they sailed on the same ship. Hamilton travelled 400 miles from Bloemfontein to Pretoria fighting 10 major battles with Boer forces (including the battle of Rooiwal) and fourteen minor ones, and was recommended twice for the Victoria Cross (which was considered inappropriate because of his rank).
In May 1901 Hamilton was appointed Military Secretary at the War Office, but the following November he was again asked to return to South Africa as Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Kitchener. He arrived in South Africa in late November 1901, and received the local rank of lieutenant general. In April 1902 he took command of the military columns operating in the Western Transvaal. Following the end of hostilities in June 1902, he returned to the UK together with Lord Kitchener on board the SS Orotava, which arrived in Southampton on 12 July. They received an enthusiastic welcome on their arrival to London, with thousands of people lining the streets to watch their procession.
In a despatch dated 23 June 1902, Lord Kitchener wrote the following about his work in South Africa:
Hamilton was promoted to lieutenant general for distinguished service in the field on 22 August 1902. He returned to his post as Military Secretary at the War Office in September 1902, and the same month accompanied Lord Roberts, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, and St John Brodrick, Secretary of State for War, on a visit to Germany to attend the German army maneuvers as guest of the Emperor Wilhelm. From 1903 to 1904 he was Quartermaster-General to the Forces.
Japan
From 1904 to 1905, Hamilton was the military attaché of the British Indian Army serving with the Japanese army in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War. Amongst the several military attachés from Western countries, he was the first to arrive in Japan after the start of the war. He published A Staff Officer's Scrap-Book during the Russo–Japanese War on his experiences and observations during that conflict.
This military confrontation between a well-known European army and a less-familiar Asian army was the first time that the tactics of entrenched positions for infantry were defended with machine guns and artillery. This was the first twentieth-century war in which the technology of warfare became increasingly important, factors which came to dominate the evolution of warfare during the First World War. Hamilton wrote that cavalry was obsolete in such a conflict, regarding their role as better accomplished by mounted infantry. He became a supporter of non-traditional tactics such as night attacks and the use of aircraft. Conversely, the successful Japanese infantry assaults convinced him that superior morale would allow an attacker to overcome prepared defensive positions.
Return to England and Inspector-General of Overseas Forces
Hamilton went on to serve as General Officer Commanding Southern Command between 1905 and 1909 and as Adjutant-General to the Forces between 1909 and 1910.
By 1911 Hamilton had been appointed Inspector-General of Overseas Forces, and by 1913 also, additionally, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Mediterranean Command, with major-generals in Gibraltar, Malta, and Egypt, plus the forces in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Cyprus seemingly reporting to him. In July 1914 he was returning to the United Kingdom with his appointment about to expire.
First World War
On 5 August 1914, with the declaration of hostilities between Britain and Germany, Hamilton was appointed as the Commander-in-Chief, Home Army. He also became commander of "Central Force", the predominantly Territorial Force military formation which was charged with repelling any seaborne German invasion of the east coast of England in the early part of the war.
Gallipoli campaign
In March 1915, Lord Kitchener appointed Hamilton, aged 62, to the command of the Allied Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, with orders to gain control of the Dardanelles straits from the Ottoman Empire and to capture Constantinople. Whilst a senior and respected officer, perhaps more experienced in different campaigns than most, Hamilton was considered too unconventional, too intellectual, and too friendly with politicians to be given a command on the Western Front. Hamilton was not given a chance to take part in planning the campaign. Intelligence reports on the Ottoman Empire's military defensive capacity were poor and underestimated its strength. Whilst the high command of the Greek Army, which possessed far more detailed knowledge of the Ottoman Empire's military capacity, warned Kitchener that a British Expeditionary Force entering the Eastern Mediterranean theatre would require 150,000 troops to capture Gallipoli, Kitchener concluded that a force of 70,000 men would be adequate to overpower any defensive garrison there.
The plan to take control of the Dardanelles and open a new front in the war had been considered in various forms since 1914. In November of that year, ships from the Royal Navy had shelled its outer forts, causing the magazine at Seddülbahir castle to explode. In December 1914, a Royal Navy submarine entered the channel and sank the Turkish warship Mesudiye at Çanakkale. These early experiences raised in Kitchener's mind the prospect of an easy victory for a more ambitious operation, but as a consequence of them, the Turks had set about laying sea-mines in the straits to interdict Allied warships ships approaching again and strengthened the forts guarding its approaches. On 3 January 1915, the British First Sea Lord, Admiral Fisher, presented a plan to the British Government for a joint naval and army attack, utilizing 75,000 troops, but only on the proviso that it could be launched with little delay. By 21 January 1915, Fisher wrote privately to Admiral Jellicoe that he could not approve the plan unless 200,000 men were available to carry it through. Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, had initially suggested in September 1914 that the operation would need the support of only 50,000 men, a strength of just over two British Army divisions.
Starting on 19 February 1915, British and French warships attempted to take the strait using naval power alone but failed after an abortive attack foundered upon sea mines. Lord Kitchener then decided that an invasion by troops of the Gallipoli peninsula would be required to support the naval operation with a land campaign, led by Hamilton, who became responsible for organising landings there. Hamilton had no specialised landing craft, the disparate troops he had been given had no training for seaborne operations, and supplies for the army had been packed in ways which made them difficult to access for landings. Hamilton believed that the Royal Navy would make further attacks during his campaign; realising its likely losses, however, and fundamentally opposing the idea that tactical losses of its ships in the operation was an acceptable price to pay, the Royal Naval high command declined to mount another attack.
With the Gallipoli Campaign stalled, Hamilton was recalled to London on 16 October 1915, effectively ending his military career.
Later life
In retirement, Hamilton was a leading figure in the ex-servicemen organization, the British Legion, holding the position of Scottish President. He was also a founding member and vice-president of the Anglo-German Association in 1928, which worked to promote rapprochement between Britain and Germany. He maintained a relationship with the Association after Adolf Hitler's rise to power, described himself as "an admirer of the great Adolph Hitler", and dismissed Mein Kampf as a "youthful excess". (In the historian Ian Kershaw's view, however, Hamilton was a pillar of the British Imperial power establishment and not a Nazi supporter, despite his early apparent approval for much of what the early manifestation of Nazi Germany proclaimed). In 1934, at the age of 81, Hamilton was filmed as part of a war documentary film called Forgotten Men.
Gordon drums
In October 1914, during WWI, the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders landed in Ostend, Belgium, and was transported to the front. They took with them their pipes but the bulky drums were left in Ostend, under the care of the police, because the transport wagons were "overloaded." After Ostend fell to the Germans, the drums were taken to the Armoury Museum in Berlin as a "war trophy." Twenty years later, in 1934, Hamilton, the Regiment's colonel, wrote to Germany's president Marshall von Hindenburg requesting the return of the seven drums and von Hindenburg "immediately" agreed. Hamilton traveled personally to the German capital and received the Gordon drums in a ceremony in which he spoke of his wish that there will be "no more war" between the "old allies of Waterloo."
Death
Hamilton died on 12 October 1947, aged 94, at his home at Hyde Park Gardens in London. His body was buried at Kilmadock Cemetery, in Doune, Stirlingshire, Scotland. In 2013, his grave was found to have fallen into a semi-derelict condition, and it was refurbished by Stirling Council.
Personal life
Hamilton spoke German, French and Hindi, and was considered charming, courtly and kind. He appeared frail yet was full of energy.
In 1887 he married Jean Muir, the daughter of a Glasgow businessman. They originally had no intention of starting a family, but adopted two children after the War.
Along with his professional career, Hamilton was a prolific writer. He published a volume of poetry and a novel contemporarily described as risqué. Examples of his written works include: The Fighting of the Future, Icarus, A Jaunt on a Junk, A Ballad of Hadji, and A Staff Officer's Scrapbook. In the introduction to his Gallipoli Diary, he stated: "There is nothing certain about war, except that one side won't win".
He was a cousin of the diarist James Lees-Milne.
Selected works
Hamilton's known published writings encompass 184 works in 568 publications, in six languages, and 4,455 library holdings.
1915 — Sir Ian Hamilton's Despatches from the Dardanelles, etc.
1919 — The Millennium
1923 — The Friends of England; Lectures to Members of the British Legion
1926 — Now and Then
1939 — When I was a Boy
1944 — Listening for the Drums
1957 — The Commander
Assessments
British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith remarked that he thought that Hamilton had "too much feather in his brain", whereas Charles Bean, a war correspondent who had reported from the scene of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 and who went on to write Australia's Official History of the 1914–1918 War, considered that Hamilton possessed "a breadth of mind which the army in general does not possess". Writing in his 'Gallipoli Memories', Sir Compton Mackenzie makes it clear that his view was aligned with that of Charles Bean.
Honours, awards and decorations
Hamilton received the honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901.
A statue of the then Lt.-Gen Hamilton stands on the Boer War memorial in Cheltenham.
Decorations
DSO : Distinguished Service Order – 1891
Most Honourable Order of the Bath
CB : Companion – 1896 – Chitral relief force
KCB : Knight Commander – 29 November 1900 – in recognition of services in connection with the Campaign in South Africa 1899–1900
GCB : Knight Grand Cross – 1910
Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George
GCMG : Knight Grand Cross – 1919
Foreign
Knight 1st class of the Order of the Crown (Prussia) – during his September 1902 visit to Germany to attend German Army manoeuvres.
Legacy
Hamilton Preparatory School, in Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, is named after Hamilton.
His medals are currently held by National Museums Scotland, with the miniatures being held by The Gordon Highlanders Museum.
See also
Military attachés and observers in the Russo-Japanese War
References
Bibliography
Winston Churchill: Ian Hamilton's march (1900)
Further reading
External links
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1853 births
1947 deaths
British military personnel of the First Boer War
British Army personnel of the Second Boer War
British Army generals of World War I
People educated at Wellington College, Berkshire
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George
Companions of the Distinguished Service Order
Rectors of the University of Edinburgh
British Army personnel of the Mahdist War
Gordon Highlanders officers
Lancashire Militia officers
British military personnel of the Second Anglo-Afghan War
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422279 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy%20Gibson | Guy Gibson | Wing Commander Guy Penrose Gibson, (12 August 1918 – 19 September 1944) was a distinguished bomber pilot in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He was the first Commanding Officer of No. 617 Squadron, which he led in the "Dam Busters" raid in 1943, resulting in the breaching of two large dams in the Ruhr area of Germany. He was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, in the aftermath of the raid in May 1943 and became the most highly decorated British serviceman at that time. He completed over 170 war operations before being killed in action at the age of 26.
Early life and education
Gibson was born in Simla, British India, on 12 August 1918, the son of Alexander James Gibson and his wife Leonora (Nora) Mary Gibson. At the time of Gibson's birth, his father was an officer in the Imperial Indian Forestry Service, becoming the Chief Conservator of Forests for the Simla Hill States in 1922. In 1924, when he was six, his parents separated. His mother was granted custody of Gibson, his elder brother Alexander ("Alick") and sister Joan, and decided to return to England.
As her family came from Porthleven, Cornwall, Nora Gibson settled first in Penzance. Gibson started school in England at the same school as his sister, West Cornwall College. His mother then moved to London and he was sent as a boarder to Earl's Avenue School, a preparatory school, later known as St George's, in Folkestone, Kent.
In 1932 Gibson started at St Edward's School, Oxford, the same school as Douglas Bader where he was also placed in the same house, Cowell's. Gibson's housemaster was A. F. "Freddie" Yorke who became Gibson's guardian.
Following her return from India, Gibson's mother developed a drinking problem which escalated into alcoholism. Her behaviour became increasingly erratic and sometimes violent towards her children. The school organised lodgings for Gibson and his brother during the school holidays. Nora's younger sister, Mrs Beatrice ("Gwennie") Christopher, gave Gibson his own room at her house. Her husband, John, helped Nora out with school fees. They also both attended some school functions to support their nephews.
Gibson was an average student academically and played for the Rugby Second XV. His interests included science and photography. At one stage as a teenager, he seems to have become interested and quite expert in the workings of cinema organs. He read all kinds of books, especially the Arthurian legends and Shakespeare. His favourite play was Henry V. He was made a house prefect.
From an early age Gibson wanted to fly. He had a picture of his boyhood hero, Albert Ball VC, the First World War flying ace, on his bedroom wall at his aunt's house. His ambition was to become a civilian test pilot. He wrote for advice to Vickers, receiving a reply from their chief test pilot, Captain Joseph "Mutt" Summers, who wrote that Gibson should first learn to fly by joining the RAF on a short service commission. Gibson applied to the RAF, but was rejected when he failed the Medical Board; the probable reason that his legs were too short. His later application was successful, and his personal file included the remark "satisfactory leg length test carried out". He commenced a short service commission in November 1936.
Initial military service
Initial military training
Gibson commenced his flying training on 16 November 1936 at the Bristol Flying School, Yatesbury, with No. 6 Flying Training Course and with civilian instructors. Owing to poor weather the course did not conclude until 1 January 1937. After some leave, he then moved to No. 24 (Training) Group at RAF Uxbridge for his RAF basic training. He was commissioned with the rank of acting pilot officer with effect from 31 January 1937. He then underwent further flying training as a member of the junior section of No. 5 Flying Training Course at No. 6 Flying Training School RAF, RAF Netheravon. He was awarded his pilot's wings on 24 May 1937.
As part of the Advanced Training Squadron, during summer 1937, he participated in further training at No. 3 Armament Training Station, Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire. He opted for bombers as these gave experience in multi-engined planes, this being typical for individuals planning on a civilian flying career. He returned to Netheravon and graduated on 31 August 1937. He passed all his ground exams first time, with an average of 77.29% and a flying rating of "average". However, his rating as a companion was below average owing to his sometimes rude and condescending behaviour towards junior ranks and ground crews in particular.
No. 83 (Bomber) Squadron
Gibson's initial posting was to No. 83 (Bomber) Squadron, stationed at RAF Turnhouse, west of Edinburgh. He was assigned to 'A' Flight and was placed under the supervision of Pilot Officer Anthony "Oscar" Bridgman. The squadron was flying Hawker Hinds. He joined a settled group of officers from similar minor public school backgrounds. As some stayed with the squadron for a few years, promotion was slow. He was promoted to pilot officer on 16 November 1937. His behaviour towards the ground crews continued to be perceived as unsatisfactory and they gave him the nickname the "Bumptious Bastard".
In March 1938, the squadron was transferred from No. 2 Group to No. 5 Group and relocated to RAF Scampton. In June they moved to RAF Leuchars for an armaments training camp. From October the squadron started their conversion to the Handley Page Hampden, which was completed by January 1939. At a Court of Inquiry in October 1938, Gibson was found guilty of negligence after a taxiing incident at RAF Hemswell. He spent Christmas Day 1938 in hospital at RAF Rauceby with chickenpox. He was then sent on convalescent leave, returning to the squadron in late January.
In Spring 1939 the squadron took part in an armaments training camp at RAF Evanton near Invergordon in Scotland. With the likelihood of war increasing and as part of a plan to improve standards, Gibson was sent on a navigation course at Hamble near Southampton. He did not appear to take the course seriously, but passed with an average mark. The instructor added the comment "could do well". He was due to leave the RAF, but was retained owing to the outbreak of hostilities in Abyssinia. In June he was promoted to flying officer. On 25 July the squadron made a long-distance flight to the south of France. They participated in Home Defence exercises over London in August. He then went on his summer leave. At this stage of his career, he had never flown or landed a plane at night.
Second World War
First operational tour: No. 83 Squadron, Bomber Command
Gibson was recalled from leave back to Scampton by telegram on 31 August 1939. Gibson flew on 3 September 1939, two days after the start of the Second World War. He was one of the pilots selected to attack the German fleet, which was near Wilhelmshaven. He took off at 18:15. The operation was aborted owing to bad weather and he landed back at Scampton around 23:00. On 5 September while in the Mess, he was bitten by a dog. His arm was put in a sling and he was granted 36 hours leave. This allowed him to attend his brother's wedding in Rugby, where he was Alick's best man. On his return, the squadron had moved to Ringway near Manchester under the Scatter Scheme. They were there for 10 days. The squadron did not fly on another operation until December, during the Phoney War.
In February 1940, Gibson was one of the members of the squadron put on temporary secondment to Coastal Command at RAF Lossiemouth. On 27 February, he participated in an operation that was sent to attack a U-boat. However, owing to various communications problems, one of the aircraft dropped its bombs on a Royal Navy submarine. The senior officers involved with the incident were censured for their failure to bring the squadron up to a satisfactory standard. The squadron then underwent a period of intensive training.
The period from April to September 1940 was one of the most operationally intense periods of Gibson's career. He completed 34 operations in 5 months, with 10 in June. The type of operation varied from "gardening" – laying mines in various seaways and harbour entrances – to attacks on capital ships, as well as attacks on ground-based military and economic targets. During this time, he acquired a reputation for being seemingly fearless, particularly as he was willing to fly in marginal weather. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) on 9 July 1940. He was trained for a low-level attack on the Dortmund-Ems canal, but he missed the actual raid on 12 August. On his return from a raid on Lorient on 27 August, he spotted a Dornier Do 215 and attacked it. He was credited with a "probable" kill. He was promoted to flight lieutenant on 3 September 1940. His last operation with the squadron was to Berlin on 23 September 1940. Arthur Harris, then the Air Officer Commanding (AOC) No. 5 Group, later described Gibson as the "most full-out fighting pilot" under his command at this time.
As was usual practice, to give pilots a rest from operations, Gibson was posted as a flying instructor to No. 14 Operational Training Unit (OTU) at RAF Cottesmore. He was there for two weeks, part of which was spent on leave, but he did not settle. He was then transferred to No. 16 OTU at RAF Upper Heyford. Meanwhile, Air Marshal Sholto Douglas, Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, and Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, AOC No. 12 (Fighter) Group, made an appeal to Harris for bomber pilots with their night-flying experience to fly night fighters. Gibson volunteered. Harris wrote a letter introducing the pilots, which included the comment "a hand-picked bunch of which Gibson is the best". Harris agreed to help Gibson's career when he had completed this tour with "the best command within my power".
Second operational tour: No. 29 Squadron, Fighter Command
Gibson was ordered to report on 13 November 1940 to No. 29 Squadron as the commander of 'A' Flight. The squadron was stationed at RAF Digby, but flew from a small satellite field at RAF Wellingore about six miles away. The officers' mess was nearby in The Grange. When he arrived, the Commanding Officer, Squadron Leader Charles Widdows, was in the process of rebuilding the squadron following an outbreak of indiscipline that nearly led to its disbandment during July 1940. He was weeding out under-performing pilots and replacing his flight commanders. Gibson attracted some hostility from some longer-standing members of the squadron, because as one of these new flight commanders, he was seen as part of Widdows' reforms and he had been chosen over an existing member of the squadron. He had also come from a Bomber squadron. The root cause of the low morale was a lack of combat success. The Bristol Blenheim was not designed as a night fighter and the airborne interception (AI) was still in its very early days of development. Also, Widdows was required to split the squadron up with a few pilots each at Ternhill, Kirton and Wittering and with no more than half at Digby at any one time. Gibson flew six operations in Blenheims.
The squadron started to convert to the Bristol Beaufighter I and Widdows personally supervised his pilots during their conversion. Gibson's first flight in a Beaufighter was on 1 December 1940. He then undertook some intensive training on AI procedure. He found the night-fighter culture very different from bombers as the two-man crew had to work as a team with the pilot relying on the guidance of the AI operator to find their targets. Gibson made his first operational flight in a Beaufighter on 10 December with Sergeant Taylor as his AI operator. That winter saw bad weather and he flew only three operations in the whole of January. He claimed a kill on 12 March, but it was not confirmed. However, his kill on 14 March was confirmed as a Heinkel He 111. He went to Skegness to collect the tail assembly as trophy for the squadron and the crew's dinghy for himself. He was attacked by an intruder when landing at Wellingore on 8 April. Gibson was unharmed, but his AI operator, Sergeant Bell, was injured in the leg.
In April, Widdows obtained a transfer for the squadron from 12 to 11 Group and a move to RAF West Malling in Kent. Gibson flew down with him on 25 April to inspect the facilities. The full squadron flew down on 29 April. Gibson was promoted to acting squadron leader towards the end of June 1941 and started to deputise for the commander in his absence. Widdows was promoted to station command and was replaced by Wing Commander Edward Colbeck-Welch. Gibson claimed two more kills which were confirmed. Another unidentified bomber, possibly a Heinkel, was claimed in flames on 3/4 May. On 6 July he downed a Heinkel He 111H-5 of 8/KG4 near Sheerness. His AI operator on all his successful claims was Sergeant R.H. James, who was awarded a Distinguished Flying Medal. However, the Luftwaffe'''s bombing offensive was tailing off and Gibson started to become bored by the relative safety, and began to describe patrols as "stooge patrols" in his log book. He made some further interceptions but his guns or cannons failed. He was also concerned by his relative lack of success compared with his fellow flight commander Bob Braham. He seems to have been happy at West Malling and said "Of all the airfields in Great Britain, here, many say, including myself, we have the most pleasant". His final patrols with the squadron were flown on 15 December. He left with both flying and gunnery ratings of above average. He was awarded a Bar to his DFC.
Again, as a rest from operations, Gibson was due to be posted to an OTU, this time No. 51 OTU, RAF Cranfield as Chief Flying Instructor. By now he had decided he wanted to return to bombers. Despite a visit to HQ No. 5 Group on 15 December to petition for a transfer, Fighter Command insisted he had to go to Cranfield. His opportunity came a few weeks later when on 22 February 1942, Arthur Harris was appointed Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) of Bomber Command. Harris fulfilled his promise made in September 1940. He called Gibson for an interview. On 22 March, Harris wrote to Air Vice Marshal John Slessor, AOC No. 5 Group, explaining his intention to promote Gibson to acting wing commander to put him in command of a Lancaster squadron. Harris suggested No. 207 Squadron. Slessor exercised his discretion and appointed Gibson CO of No. 106 Squadron. Gibson was posted from No. 51 OTU and sent on leave until April, which he spent in south Wales.
Third operational tour: No. 106 Squadron, Bomber Command
When the newly promoted Wing Commander Gibson, aged just 23, joined No. 106 Squadron at RAF Coningsby, morale was good, but there was serious disappointment with the new twin-engined Avro Manchester because its Rolls-Royce Vulture engines were unreliable. Therefore, the squadron was scheduled to convert to the four-engined Avro Lancaster, equipped with Rolls-Royce Merlin engines as soon as they became available.
Gibson eased himself back into bomber operational flying with a mine-laying operation in the Baltic on 22 April 1942. and completed three more sorties in the Manchester during the following 3 weeks.
April 1942 was a good month for the squadron. They flew on eighteen nights, six consecutively and the improvements in performance were noted by analysts at both No. 5 Group and Bomber Command. The Lancasters started to arrive during May and an ad hoc training plan was started while normal operations were maintained. Gibson made his first flight in a Lancaster in early May.
As a commander, Gibson's main concern was to be seen to share the risk. He continued to show unremitting aggression with a selectivity towards harder targets rather than easier ones. He expected the same determination from everyone on the squadron. He was ruthless in screening crews for reliability. The station's Medical Officer became expert in determining which crews were simply unlucky in contrast with genuine malingerers. However he was capable of serious misjudgements on occasions, and could be prone to unreasonable outbursts and the persecution of some crews and their members.
Like Widdows, he carefully supervised new crews and eased them into operational flying with "Nasturtium training" – mine-laying and then easier targets. He was pressured to expose them earlier to greater risks, and acquired a reputation for not accepting any interference in how he ran the squadron.
Gibson's exercise of summary discipline tended towards constructive tasks aimed at improving the efficiency of the squadron such as maintenance of aircraft, engines or weapons He was responsible for the emergence of an inner circle of officers who shared his intensity for operations. Their off-duty activities included swimming, water polo and shooting. However, his behaviour towards NCOs and ground crews could still be a problem. Soon after his arrival, the NCOs perceived one incident he was involved in with them as particularly high-handed and the ground crews quickly gave him the nickname "The Boy Emperor". Gibson got on better with his own class and background than with "other ranks and colonials". Bomb-aimer George "Johnny" Johnson of Joe McCarthy's crew said that on 106 Squadron he was known as the 'Arch-Bastard' because of his strict discipline, and he did not mix with the lower ranks or talk to NCOs, ground crews or Canadians. A little man, he was arrogant, bombastic and a strict disciplinarian but "had something to be bombastic about" and was a "true leader ... though he never spoke to or even acknowledged me."
On 11 May, he was hospitalised at RAF Rauceby. The exact reason is unknown, but suggestions include a sinus or middle ear problem. He was then sent on two weeks convalescent leave. This absence meant he was unable to participate in Operation Millennium, the "1000 Bomber raids", the first of which was made on Cologne on 30 May 1942. He found this frustrating because this raid saw the introduction of the Bomber stream. This was where the aircraft were concentrated together in an attempt to overwhelm the defences, with each allocated a specific place, height band, and time slot. This period saw the introduction of aiming-point photography. Gibson tried it out and then encouraged all aircrews to become "photo minded". Obtaining good aiming point photographs quickly became a competition both within, and between squadrons.
On his return he continued to build up his experience with the Lancaster. He flew with his friend, pilot John Hopgood on 4 July and then on a long cross-country flight the day after, 5 July. He made his first operational flight in a Lancaster on 8 July with Dave Shannon as his second pilot. They were together again on 11 July when they went to Danzig. They were appalled when they were sent on a daylight bombing raid to the Krupp Arms Works in Essen on 18 July. It was known as a difficult and dangerous target at night, expected to be much worse in the daytime, and they were relieved to be recalled when near Vlissingen. They jettisoned their bombs over the sea before returning.
The squadron was selected for special training in the use of two kinds of new bombsight for use with a special bomb designed for attacks on capital ships. However, Gibson advised that the aircraft should not attack any ships below 8,500 feet. They put this training into practice with a marathon flight to Gdynia on 27 August 1942. The targets were Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. Gibson again flew with Shannon and they swapped places during the flight. There was significant unexpected haze over the target when they arrived. Gibson's bomb aimer, Squadron Leader Richardson, a bombing instructor from RAF Manby, requested twelve practice runs over the target, but they still failed to damage the ship. In fact no ships were damaged during the raid, but the squadron's preparation for the raid was noted by Harris and Air Commodore Alec Coryton, the AOC No. 5 Group.
On 30 September the squadron moved from Coningsby to RAF Syerston in Nottinghamshire. They expected this move to be only temporary while the runways were concreted, but problems at Coningsby meant it became permanent.
Gibson quickly formed a good relationship with Syerston's station commander Group Captain "Gus" Walker. In October, they were required to conduct low-level training exercises with aircraft flying in formations of threes and sixes. This training was put to use in a raid on the 17th on Le Creusot in France. Gibson and Hopgood were among the pilots sent to attack the electric transformer station at nearby Montchanin. Later in the month they started to attack Italian targets including Genoa, Milan and Turin. In November 1942 Gibson was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO).
On 8 December Gibson did not fly. He was in the control room with Walker watching the aircraft taxiing for take-off. Walker noticed some incendiaries which had fallen out of the bomb bay of a reserve Lancaster located near the main bomb dump. The incendiaries had ignited. Walker drove out to the plane and tried to move the incendiaries with a rake. He lost his arm in the subsequent explosion of the 4000 lb "cookie" bomb still in the aircraft's bomb bay. He was replaced by Group Captain Bussell.
On 16 January 1943, Gibson took BBC war correspondent Major Richard Dimbleby on a sortie to Berlin. Dimbleby described the raid in a later radio broadcast. Gibson was very pleased with the outcome, as he always wanted to communicate what life was like for the aircrews. On 12 March, he made his final flight with the squadron to Stuttgart. He flew on three engines and was forced to stay low throughout the raid.
Bussell recommended Gibson for a Bar to his DSO, but this was reduced to a second Bar to his DFC at HQ No. 5 Group owing to the recent award of the DSO. However, Harris confirmed the Bar to Gibson's DSO with the comment "any Captain who completes 172 sorties in outstanding manner is worth two DSOs if not a VC. Bar to DSO approved". Gibson was informed on 25 March, after he left the squadron.
Gibson was expecting to go on leave to Cornwall and was therefore shocked when he received a call from HQ No. 5 Group to inform him he was being posted there to write a book.
No. 617 Squadron and Operation Chastise
Formation of Squadron X
After the decision was made to attack the Ruhr dams, Harris decided to hand the direct responsibility for the detailed planning, preparation and execution to Air Vice Marshal Ralph Cochrane, AOC No. 5 Group. Harris told him he must form a new squadron and nominated Gibson as the CO.
On 18 March 1943 Gibson attended an interview at HQ No. 5 Group where Cochrane asked him if he was willing to fly on "one more trip". Gibson indicated that he was. He attended a further interview the following day when he was told that he was to command a new squadron, which would be required to fly low at night with an objective that had to be achieved by 19 May. At this meeting, he was introduced to Group Captain John Whitworth, the commander of RAF Scampton where the new squadron was to be stationed.
Selection of aircrew
A circular was sent by 5 Group to all its squadrons, asking them to provide a pilot and crew for a new squadron, for a special one-off operation. No copies of the circular survive, but it would seem to have specified that the crew should be experienced, even perhaps have completed a full tour. Bomber Command then stated they should have completed or nearly completed two tours of operations.
Squadron Leaders Maudslay and Young were appointed as his flight commanders. The selection of Young resulted in the transfer of the whole of 'C' Flight from No. 57 Squadron into the new one. Some crews or pilots were known to Gibson including Hopgood and Shannon, who by this time had transferred from No. 106 squadron to the Pathfinders and No. 83 Squadron. He selected Harold "Mick" Martin for his low-flying expertise. Of Gibson's regular crew from No. 106 Squadron, only Robert Hutchison, the wireless operator, volunteered for this new one. Three more members of his crew came from 50 Squadron, Harlo Taerum, a Canadian navigator, Fred Spafford, an Australian bomb-aimer, and Richard Trevor-Roper, rear gunner. The front gunner was George Deering, another Canadian, and the flight engineer was John Pulford. Although Gibson's crew comprised experienced men, in the end some crews had not completed one tour, with some individuals having flown fewer than ten operations.
Gibson was strict in screening the crews during training. That not all the crews were known to him is reflected in how two crews were posted off the squadron as not satisfactory and another crew chose to leave after their navigator was deemed unsatisfactory.
Training of No. 617 Squadron
Gibson arrived at Scampton on 21 March. His office was on the 1st floor in No.2 Hangar. His immediate task was to get the general administration organised. He delegated this and the adjutant assigned from No. 57 Squadron was quickly replaced with Flight Lieutenant Humphreys from Syerston. Humphreys was instrumental in the rapid establishment of the squadron. The ground staff started to muster from 21 March and were fully present by 27 March. Flight Sergeant (Discip) Powell inspected them and weeded out those he felt other squadrons had off-loaded. The aircrews started to arrive from 24 March.
On 24 March Gibson travelled to Burhill near Weybridge for his first meeting with Barnes Wallis. Wallis discovered Gibson had not been cleared for a full briefing and therefore could not be told the targets. Wallis was able to explain the design and operation of the new weapon, Upkeep and showed him films from its trials. It was a depth charge which, if rotated with backspin and dropped at the correct speed and altitude, would bounce across the surface of a body of water towards a target. This bouncing behaviour gave it its nickname the bouncing bomb. The crews usually referred to it as a mine.
On 27 March Group Captain Satterley provided Gibson with "most secret" written orders, including a description of the attack and the general plan for the squadron's preliminary training. From these Gibson learnt that the targets were "lightly defended special targets" which reduced his suspicion that they were training to attack the Tirpitz. The orders included a list of nine lakes and reservoirs in the Midlands and North Wales, for training flights and target practice. They included Eyebrook Reservoir, near Uppingham, Rutland, Abberton Reservoir near Colchester and Derwent Reservoir in the Peak District. Some of the earliest flights made by the new No. 617 Squadron, were reconnaissance flights over these bodies of water. A recommendation to maximize the training time available was to use simulated night flying as developed by the USAAF. This required the cockpit to be covered in blue celluloid and the pilots and bomb aimers to wear goggles with amber-tinted lenses. Gibson wanted six aeroplanes converted but only two became available, the first on 11 April.
Another important factor was the need for a specially adapted version of the Lancaster, the B.III (Special), officially the "Type 464 (Provisioning)". The bomb bay doors were removed and the ends of the bay were covered with fairings. Upkeep was suspended on pivoted, vee-shaped struts which sprang apart when the bomb-release button was pressed. A drive belt and pulley to rotate the bomb at 500 rpm was mounted on the starboard strut and driven by a hydraulic motor housed in the forward fairing. The mid-upper turret was removed and a more bulbous bomb aimer's blister was fitted. The first adapted aircraft arrived at Scampton on 8 April.
On 28 March, Gibson made his first flight to explore the low-flying requirement. He took Hopgood and Young with him and found low flying during daylight satisfactory but during an attempt at dusk the difficulty of their task became apparent, when they nearly ditched. On 29 March, Gibson was shown scale models of the Moehne and Sorpe dams by Cochrane at HQ 5 Group. He then attended a further meeting with Wallis at Weybridge. At this meeting he rejected Wallis's proposal of a daylight raid.
The squadron commenced daily flying training at the beginning of April with long cross-country flights with precise turning points to develop their navigation skills. They then started to practise low flying over water. The squadron completed over a thousand flying hours by the end of April and Gibson was able to report to Whitworth, that they could fly pinpoint to pinpoint at low level at night, could bomb using a rangefinder and fly over water at . On 24 April Wallis made a request for the altitude to be reduced to . Gibson reported on 27 April that it was possible and the training was adapted accordingly.
Gibson was closely involved with discussions about the design, trial and approval of the solutions developed for the various technical issues encountered. These included the Dann bomb sight and the 'Spotlight Altimeter Calibrator', which was the name given to the spotlights attached to the Lancasters, to ensure the determination of the correct height above a body of water. Security was Gibson's constant concern and he was especially displeased to learn from his bombing leader Watson that he had been shown details of the targets within days of his arrival at RAF Manston. Gibson wrote to Cochrane who raised his concerns about this 'criminal' breach of security at the highest levels.
From the beginning of May squadron training shifted to the tactical aspects of the operation. On 1 May Gibson communicated to Wallis his confidence that the operation would succeed. He repeated this optimism in his weekly report to Whitworth on 4 May where he described the squadron as "ready to operate". On 6 May he held a conference with the pilots to explain the tactical aspects. They flew a rehearsal that evening with Gibson directing a group by radio telephony (R/T) on the spot over the Eyebrook and Abberton Reservoirs. A second group went to the Derwent Reservoir and a third to the Wash. On 10 May, Satterly sent the draft handwritten operation order to Whitworth for review and revision, to be returned by 1600 on 12 May. It included, how the squadron would be split into waves to attack the targets, reserves, likely defences and exit routes; Gibson provided detailed comments. Despite Gibson's confidence, there still had not been a successful release of a live Upkeep, which took until 11 May. Most of the crews were able to practise at Reculver on the Kent coast from 11 to 14 May. Gibson practised at Reculver in Lancaster ED932/AJ-G, the aircraft he used on the raid. The aircraft's call letters were the same as his father's initials: AJG. On 14 May the squadron flew on a full dress rehearsal designed to simulate the routes, targets and the geography of the raid. Gibson took Whitworth with him and described the outcome in his log book as "completely successful".
Cochrane travelled to Scampton on 15 May to inform Whitworth and Gibson that the operation would take place the following evening, over 16/17 May. At about 16:00, Gibson travelled with Cochrane on his return to Grantham. Here he discussed the draft operation order with Satterly and Wing Commander Dunn, No. 5 Group's chief signals officer. He returned to Scampton and at 18:00 at Whitworth's house, along with Wallis, he briefed Young and Maudsley, his flight commanders, and Hopgood, the deputy leader, and Hay, the squadron's bombing leader. He had obtained Cochrane's verbal agreement for Hopgood and Hay to attend, which proved beneficial as Hopgood was able to point out the new defences at Huls. After the meeting broke up, Whitworth informed Gibson that his dog, named Nigger, had been killed in a road accident. It did not seem to affect Gibson outwardly. He was aware how superstitious some aircrew could be, as the dog was the squadron's mascot. Wallis feared it was a dreadful omen.
Raid of 16/17 May 1943
Briefings during 16 May
The first thing Gibson did early on the morning of 16 May was to report to the Medical Officer because of pains in his feet. The MO had previously diagnosed gout but he could not prescribe painkillers as these might affect Gibson's alertness when flying. As Gibson felt he had no choice but to fly, he decided to continue as he was. The first briefing was at midday when Gibson and Wallis explained the details of the raid to the pilots and navigators. The next one was at 14:30 and included the bomb aimers and gunners. At 18:00 all the aircrew were called to a final briefing in the upper briefing room, which was guarded.
Gibson explained how they were going "to attack the great dams of Germany". He then introduced Wallis who explained how Upkeep would be used against the dams. Cochrane then spoke and emphasised how they would do "a tremendous amount of damage" but their exploits would remain secret. Gibson explained the operational details again and made it clear no crews were to return with their mine. He handed over to Wing Commander Dunn who explained the signals procedures. The meeting broke up and the crews went for their meal at 19:30.
Flight to the Möhne Dam
Gibson was driven out to his aircraft AJ-G by his regular driver, Eileen Strawson. Cochrane came out to Gibson's aircraft to wish him well. A photo was taken of the crew entering the aircraft beforehand. Gibson took off at 21:39 with Hopgood and Martin. They flew out over Skegness and Cromer. The winds were stronger than forecast, as a result they made landfall later and further south than expected. Gibson had the route adjusted to Roosendaal and they flew on unopposed to the Rhine. Again they were too far south, about from the expected landmark and received flak from barges on the river and batteries on the banks. They had similar navigation problems until they reached the target. They found the defences at the Möhne Dam as described at the briefing. There was an active light flak battery but no searchlights or barrage balloons.
Attack on the Möhne Dam
Gibson made a dummy run over the dam to look the target over and reported how he "liked the look of it". The second formation of three led by Young arrived at this point. Gibson made his bombing run but the bomb was released short and did not damage the dam. It took about five minutes for the water to settle down after the explosion. He then called in Hopgood to make his attack. He watched as Hopgood's aircraft was hit by flak, caught fire and then exploded. Hopgood's crew had managed to release their bomb but it overshot and destroyed an electrical station below the dam. Gibson waited again for the water to settle. He then called in Martin to make his attack but this time decided to fly with him, parallel and slightly ahead, to draw off the flak. Martin's mine did not damage the dam. Gibson called in Young and Martin flew alongside him, whilst Gibson flew along another evasive path. It was not obvious until Maltby started the next bombing run that Young's mine had breached the dam. At 00:56, Hutchinson sent the code word "N I G G E R" (sic), the name of Gibson's recently killed dog, to signal the breach to HQ 5 Group and then confirmed it on their request. Martin and Maltby departed for home.
Attack on the Eder Dam
After breaching the Möhne dam, Gibson flew with Young as his deputy and the remaining aircraft that still had their mines, to the Eder See. Shannon had arrived with Young while Maudslay and Knight had arrived while Hopgood had been preparing for his bombing run. The flight to the Eder See lasted about 14 minutes. They did not fly in formation and did not encounter any opposition. The dam was difficult to find and there was early morning mist starting to gather over the water. Shannon arrived too far west and found the Rehbuch dam. Gibson's aircraft fired red Very lights to help him find the others. Although the dam's defences consisted of only two sentries with rifles, it was still a difficult target owing to the approach. Shannon flew three dummy runs and then Maudsley flew two. Shannon flew two more dummy runs before finally releasing his bomb, which did not breach the dam. When Maudslay released his bomb it hit a parapet and his plane appeared to get caught in the explosion. However, there were messages from the aircraft and it is possible that it survived this and crash-landed later. Gibson called in Astell but did not seem to realise he was not present. He then called in Knight, who made a single dummy run before releasing his bomb. It breached the dam. At 01:54, Hutchinson signalled the breach and then confirmed it.
Return flight, debriefing and questionnaire
Gibson returned via the Möhne dam and the third exit route. At 02:10, he received an enquiry from HQ 5 Group, asking whether any crews were available to attack the Sorpe. He replied that there were not. He had an uneventful flight home and landed at 04:15 with just three small holes in his aircraft's tail. He attended a debriefing and like all the pilots who returned from this raid, he had to complete a special questionnaire about the target and behaviour of the weapon. The pilots were invited to make additional comments. Gibson's comments included how VHF had proved a "perfect" method to control the raid.
Aftermath
One of Gibson's first tasks after his own debriefing was to deal with the early returns. He accepted that Munro's aircraft had sustained significant damage and Rice's mine had fallen off. Gibson was furious with Anderson because he returned with his bomb, despite the instructions at the briefing. The crew were posted off the squadron with immediate effect, although the squadron's official records show they left in early June. At 08:30 he received a lengthy message from Cochrane thanking him for his efforts in making the raid a success.
On 27 May the King and Queen visited Scampton. There was lunch in the officers' mess followed by an inspection of the squadron. Gibson showed the King models and photos of the dams. The King chose the motto for the new squadron 'Apres Moi Le Deluge'. On 28 May Archibald Sinclair, the Secretary of State for Air visited Scampton. Gibson then went on a fortnight's leave to Cornwall where he spent most of his time fishing.
As the full extent of the losses – eight aircraft and 56 crew – became apparent, Wallis became distraught at the human cost. Humphreys and Hevron started the task of informing the next of kin. A party was organised at RAF Woodhall Spa on the evening of 17 May and Gibson attended but he made sure a beer was sent to Humphreys with his compliments. It took three days to complete the telegrams and follow-up letters. Gibson continued his usual practice of adding personal comments to letters where possible.
On 18 May, there was a parade where Cochrane and Gibson made speeches to the squadron members. He then released the air crews from duty on seven days' leave and half the ground crew on three days' leave. Gibson went on weekend leave to Penarth. On the Sunday he received a call from Harris to inform him he had been awarded the Victoria Cross (VC). His response was subdued as he felt responsible for those he had recruited and who had not returned, particularly Hopgood. He was reported as saying: "It all seems so unfair".
On 22 June, Gibson and all the other newly decorated members of 617 Squadron attended an investiture at Buckingham Palace. It was performed by the Queen as the King was in North Africa. She presented Gibson with his VC and the Bar to his DSO first, and in making him the most highly decorated serviceman in the country. After the investitures all the crews went on to the Hungaria Restaurant to a dinner arranged by AV Roe, the builders of the Lancaster. Gibson was presented with a silver model of a Lancaster by the company's chairman, Thomas Sopwith. Also at the dinner were Roy Chadwick, the designer of the Lancaster, and Wallis.
Harris made arrangements to ensure Gibson was rested from operations and on 24 July he and his wife were invited to lunch at Chequers as guests of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Here Gibson was shown a film smuggled out of Germany about the concentration camps. On 2 August, Gibson made his last flight with 617 Squadron. He flew with his regular crew and his successor, Wing Commander George Holden, to Eyebrook Reservoir to familiarise him with the technique to release Upkeep.
Post-Chastise activities
Tour of Canada and US
On 3 August Gibson travelled to London to join the party accompanying the Prime Minister to the Quadrant Conference in Quebec City, Canada. Around midnight they were taken by a special train to Faslane where they boarded the Queen Mary, setting sail around 17:30 on 4 August.
The party included some of the most senior military figures such as Lord Louis Mountbatten, Chief of Combined Operations and Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff. Gibson was therefore an outsider, like fellow passenger, Brigadier Orde Wingate, the Chindits leader. However, unlike Wingate, he seems to have found it easier to enter into shipboard life. Mary Churchill, who was travelling as her father's aide-de-camp, found Gibson "had all the aura of a hero" and also "very agreeable and debonair to talk to". On the last evening of the voyage, on 8 August, after dinner, Gibson was invited to address the whole party on the Dams Raid.
On 9 August they arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and were transferred by special trains to Quebec. A certain amount of disinformation circulated around their arrival including how Gibson had acted as the pilot on the aircraft that had flown Churchill across the Atlantic. They arrived at a time of significant tension between the British and Canadian governments. The Canadians were unhappy with the relative lack of credit being granted to the Royal Canadian Air Force's (RCAF) contribution to the war effort. On 11 August, Gibson attended a select luncheon with the Prime Minister, where he was introduced to the Canadian Prime Minister, Mackenzie King. He spent the rest of the afternoon at an RCAF recruiting centre.
On 12 August Gibson attended a press conference arranged in his honour. It was hosted by C.G. Power, the Canadian Minister of National Defence for Air and attended by hundreds of journalists from around the world. Gibson responded to questions about the Dams Raid and revealed the Prime Minister called him "Dam-buster". Reports of the conference were enthusiastic. He attended engagements in the Quebec area. On 17 August, President Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived at the Conference. Churchill arranged for Gibson to meet the President at a private meeting.
Gibson left Quebec on 20 August to start the Canadian leg of his tour. It was a punishing schedule and included civic receptions and speeches, motorcades, interviews, broadcasts, along with travel. He went to Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and London (Ontario). As Churchill was in New York, on 5 September, Gibson was diverted there to make a radio broadcast which was heard on station WJZ New York. In Winnipeg he met the family of Harvey Glinz, who had been killed on the Dams Raid when flying as the front-gunner in Barlow's crew. He then went on to training bases at Carberry, Rivers, Dafoe, Moose Jaw and Moss Bank.
On 11 September he arrived in Calgary. Here he met the mother of the navigator in his own Dams Raid crew, Mrs Taerum. He spent time with her at home the following day. He also met Leading Aircraftman Robert Young, the younger brother of Squadron Leader Young, also killed on the Dams raid. He continued on to Vancouver and Victoria before returning to Montreal and Ottawa in the east. He had a week's rest at the Seignory Club in Ottawa from 28 September to 3 October.
On 4 October he began the United States leg of his tour in Washington, D.C. He attended a major press conference at the offices of the British Information Service in New York on 7 October. This was "at a time when the first American airmen were coming home 'tour expired' after 25 operations. During questions one young lady asked, 'Wing Commander Gibson, how many operations have you been on over Germany?' He replied, 'One hundred and seventy-four.' There was a stunned silence".
On 19 October, Gibson was invested with the Commander's Insignia to the Legion of Merit by General Henry H. Arnold at Bolling Field near Washington D.C. The decision to award him with the Legion of Merit was taken quickly. It was also exceptional. To avoid duplication American awards were, in general, not accepted for actions which had already earned a British medal. This allowed them to be restricted to cases where Americans wished to express particular gratitude. For example, they were often given for the air/sea rescue of American personnel. The award was announced formally in Britain in December 1943.
Gibson continued on to Chicago, Minneapolis and then to Los Angeles, where he stayed with the film director Howard Hawks. Most his time was spent in private, his reward for his gruelling tour. However, it is possible he might have been giving technical advice on a proposed film of the Dams Raid. Hawks had commissioned Roald Dahl to write a script for the film and had started to build models of the dams and Lancaster bombers. He was encouraged by Bomber Command's PR Department. However, when Wallis was shown the script, he thought it absurd, and the project was scrapped.
Gibson returned to Montreal and flew back to Britain in a B-24 Liberator being ferried across the Atlantic. He landed at Prestwick on 1 December and was met by a representative from the Ministry of Intelligence. On his return he was exhausted, but still went straight from home in London to Scampton to visit 617 Squadron. When he arrived he was informed that they had moved to Coningsby, and was driven over. He visited HQ 5 Group in an attempt to obtain an operational posting, but was declared non-operational sick and sent on a month's rest leave. At the end of his leave he was due to be posted to the Directorate of Accidents with the order to write a book. During this time he was hospitalised with Vincent's Angina on 17 December.
The view emerged that as a result of the tour he had acquired and retained an increased sense of his own importance. In July 1944 Harris wrote to Cochrane to comment that the Americans had "spoiled young Gibson". Therefore, this route was not pursued again later in the war with other highly decorated airmen, such as Leonard Cheshire.
Directorate for the Prevention of Accidents: writing Enemy Coast Ahead
In January 1944, Gibson was posted to the Directorate for the Prevention of Accidents, where he appears to have been under orders to write a book. This posting was effectively a cover to give him the time and access to the resources he needed to complete it. It is possible either the Ministry of Intelligence or the RAF's publicity department wanted him to complete a book in order to counter the increasing criticisms of the Strategic Air Offensive.
Gibson was seated in a small back room and had access to a dictaphone and typist. He did not seem to take well to his assignment initially; when Heveron travelled from Scampton to deliver some information about 617 Squadron, he found Gibson depressed and with long hair.
Gibson did seem to become increasingly enthusiastic about writing, and his wife remembered his writing at home during weekends while he was at Staff College during March–May 1944. The typescript survives of a draft Gibson submitted in summer 1944, which his wife later donated to the RAF Museum at Hendon. The writing has Gibson's characteristic style of comments and humour, implying that the book was not ghost-written, as some have suggested. The typescript includes corrections in his own hand, which may suggest he had the help of a professional editor while he was writing. The text was passed by the censors, who edited out some of his more intolerant political and social views as well as operational information. He completed his final draft in September 1944.
Appearance on Desert Island Discs
On 19 February 1944, Gibson appeared as the castaway on Desert Island Discs with Roy Plomley.
His musical choices were:Warsaw Concerto by Richard Addinsell played by London Symphony Orchestra
"Where or When" (from Babes in Arms) played by Jack Hylton & His Orchestra
"A Thousand and One Nights Waltz" by Johann Strauss II: Symphony Orchestra, conductor: Johann Strauss IIIThe Flying Dutchman overture by Richard Wagner played by Berlin State Opera Orchestra
"If I Had My Way" performed by Bing Crosby
"The Marines Hymn" performed by Fred Waring & His Pennsylvanians
"Royal Air Force March Past" performed by The Central Band of The Royal Air Force
"Ride of the Valkyries" (from Die Walküre) by Richard Wagner performed by Queens Hall Orchestra
Politics, prospective parliamentary candidate for Macclesfield
Garfield Weston, the Conservative Member of Parliament for Macclesfield, was due to retire and was looking for a replacement. In February 1944 he approached Gibson to suggest he consider standing for Parliament. Gibson agreed, but first he had to be selected by the local party. Gibson made visits to Macclesfield to campaign for selection. On one occasion he shared a platform with Lord Vansittart, who gave his name – Vansittartism – to a form of collective German guilt for the war. A short-list of candidates was drawn up, which also included Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett. Gibson was selected by a narrow margin and became the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for the constituency. Despite the constituency party's having taken him on knowing his circumstances as a serving officer, Gibson resigned as their candidate in August 1944 citing the demands of his service career.
Return to operations
Staff College and Base Staff Officer
Gibson attended a staff course at the RAF Staff College at Bulstrode Park near Gerrards Cross from the end of March to May 1944. He then went on leave. During the last week, he became very restless as he learned about the D-Day landings. He feared the war would end before he could get back into the action. On his return, he appealed straight to Harris. Four days later, he was appointed as a staff officer at No. 55 Base, RAF East Kirkby to understudy to the Base Air Staff Officer (BASO). Duties included operational planning and liaison between the units within the Base.
On 5 July, he flew in a Lancaster for the first time since leaving No. 617 Squadron. It was a test flight and the crew commented that he handled it well considering how long it had been since he had last flown. On 19 July he joined a Lancaster crew, possibly from No. 630 Squadron, located at East Kirkby, during an attack on a V-1 flying bomb launch site at Criel-sur-Mer in France. He pasted an aiming point photo from the operation in his log book.
On 2 August, he was posted to No. 54 Base, RAF Coningsby, where he arrived on the 4th. Coningsby was a centre for tactical innovation and home of the elite No. 54 Base Flight. Here he was exposed to intelligence that increased his concern that the war would end without him getting back into the action. At this stage, he may have had Cochrane's consent for limited operational flying, provided it was non-participatory, short time over target and he could bail out over Allied-controlled territory.
On 15 August, he flew in a Lightning as an observer on a daylight raid over Deelen in the Netherlands. He made a similar flight in a Lightning a few days later to Le Havre. On 2 September, he flew a Mosquito to Scasta in Shetland.
Death
On 19 September, an order came through from Bomber Command for No. 5 Group to prepare for an attack on Bremen. Planes from No. 5 Group would be responsible for all aspects of the operation, including target illumination and marking and control of the raid. Cochrane, the AOC, would be responsible for tactics and route planning. As the day progressed, the weather forecast changed, and at 16:45 an order came through to change to the reserve targets at Rheydt and Moenchen-Gladbach.
At the flight planning conference it was decided that three areas would be attacked simultaneously; they were designated as red, green and yellow. The red area was Rheydt town centre, where the attack would be fully controlled by a master bomber who would monitor the marking and coordinate the main force bombing. The tactics – dispersed marking – were untried and unrehearsed, and therefore would require expertise from the controller and markers. The announcement that Gibson would be the controller was met with general incredulity. It was assumed it would be regular controller from No. 54 Base Flight or a qualified one from No. 627 Squadron. Some suspicion started to circulate that the proposed complexity may have come from Gibson and his lack of experience in marking techniques.
As Gibson did not have a regular navigator, one had to be found to fly with him. The first choice was ill, so Squadron Leader Jim Warwick was selected. He was the Station Navigation Officer and therefore screened from operations. There was also no serviceable Mosquito available at Coningsby for Gibson to use, so it was decided to use the reserve aircraft of No. 627 Squadron, located at RAF Woodhall Spa. Gibson and Warwick were driven over. When they arrived about 18:30, for unknown reasons, Gibson rejected the reserve aircraft KB213 and insisted on using the Mosquito B.XX KB267 instead. The crew who were expecting to fly in KB267 were unhappy with the change. As the two crews were performing different functions, the bomb loads had to be swapped. They took off at 19:51.
When they arrived at the target, the marking of the red area went badly wrong owing to a series of mishaps. The three markers could not identify the marking point and one aircraft had engine problems. Gibson attempted to mark it himself but his Target Indicators (TIs) did not release. As the illumination from the flares was fading, he called for more flares and warned the red section of the main force not to bomb. He then commanded them to stand by, so they started to turn away from the target. This was potentially dangerous and exposed them to further risk from flak and night fighters. Some started to bomb the green area, either out of confusion or nervousness. He then authorised the remaining aircraft to bomb the green area. The red area was eventually marked, but it was too late to direct any of the main force's aircraft to attack it. The raid concluded at 21:58. The time of Gibson's departure from the target is unknown. It is possible that he loitered in a wide, high orbit to assess the outcome and left around 22:00. One crew from No. 61 Squadron claimed they heard him say he had a damaged engine.
Gibson's aircraft crashed at Steenbergen in the Netherlands at around 22:30 and lit up in flames. Witnesses heard an aircraft flying low, saw that its cockpit was illuminated and then it crashed. At first, Gibson's failure to return to Woodhall Spa was not considered out of the ordinary, as it was assumed he had landed at Coningsby. Likewise at Coningsby there was no immediate concern as there was fog and it was assumed he would have landed elsewhere. However, it soon became apparent he had not returned. The rumour spread rapidly around No. 5 Group that he was missing. He was not posted officially as missing until 29 November, although Prime Minister Winston Churchill was informed on 26 September: "The Air Ministry have told us that Wing Commander Gibson, V.C. is reported missing from a recent raid in which he flew a Mosquito to Munchen Gladbach".
Funeral
At Steenbergen, the Germans cordoned off the crash site at the Graaf Hendrikpolder. Human remains were recovered which confirmed there had been one person in the plane and therefore initially it was suspected the other member may have bailed out. However, with the discovery of a third hand, the presence of a second person was confirmed. Jim Warwick was identified from his identity tag. The laundry tag in a sock identified the other person as a "Guy Gibson". The remains were placed in a small specially constructed coffin.
The local deputy mayor, Mr. Herbers, wanted to give the men a proper funeral. They hired a horse-drawn hearse from nearby Halsteren. The coffin was draped with the flag of the Netherlands and was laid to rest in the Catholic cemetery. The funeral was attended by the Catholic priest, Father Verhoeven and the Protestant Pastor van den Brink. As they did not know the men's religion they performed the funeral between them. Father Verhoeven read the psalm, De Profundis and Pastor van den Brink spoke the Lord's Prayer in English. A cross was erected over the grave with Warwick's full rank and name with the name "Guy Gibson" underneath. When it was later confirmed who "Guy Gibson" was, a new cross was constructed with Gibson's rank, name and decorations.
Analysis and theories of the crash
The exact cause of Gibson's crash is unknown. There are number of theories, some more likely than others. Various factors may have contributed to the loss of his Mosquito. One theory advanced is that the accident was due to Gibson's lack of experience flying Mosquitoes. His log book, which he had last updated on 16 September, detailed 9 hours and 35 minutes flying Mosquitoes. It was observed it took him three attempts to land at Scatsta. He had been on one training flight on 31 August to learn how to dive bomb, and Mosquito crews knew they had to practise regularly, particularly in pulling out of dives. Also, he had not rehearsed the emergency procedures to exit a Mosquito, which could take 30 seconds, even on the ground.
The same lack of experience flying the Mosquito applied to his navigator, Squadron Leader Warwick, who had never flown in one operationally. That a letter was found with Warwick's address (RAF Coningsby) on it suggests Warwick's inclusion on the flight was a very late decision. He was experienced and would have known not to take anything like an addressed letter with him under normal circumstances.
Harris wrote that Gibson appointed himself as the controller. It is possible he seized this opportunity in Air Commodore Sharpe's absence when the late change in target was announced. There were some instances of Mosquitoes breaking up because of their wooden frames. Harris considered this as a possibility, however, it is unlikely. Lack of fuel is the explanation most favoured by members of No. 627 Squadron at the time. In December 1985 the site was excavated and wreckage from the plane recovered. No enemy damage was noticeable. It has therefore been suggested that Gibson and Warwick had failed to switch fuel tanks at the correct time. It has also been suggested there was a fault with the fuel tank selector. Further, it is possible that a lack of familiarity with the Mosquito resulted in neither Gibson nor Warwick being able to find the switches to swap the fuel supply. This would also be a reason to explain why the cockpit was illuminated: they were attempting to locate the switches. In either case, the result would be that the aircraft simply ran out of fuel.
If Gibson left Rheydt at 22:00 then it is estimated he was about 70 miles short of the expected location if the aircraft had been operating normally. Therefore, it is possible the aircraft was flying underpowered at the time of the crash. This would suggest some sort of damage to the aircraft.
Speculation persists that Gibson's Mosquito may have been shot down by German night-fighter ace Kurt Welter. On the night of the raid, 19 September 1944, Welter was the only German pilot to have claimed a Mosquito shot down that night, and Gibson's Mosquito the only one lost. However, a listing of Luftwaffe claims transcribed from the original microfilms shows that Welter's claim was on the night of 18/19 September, and was north of Wittenberg, in the area southwest of Berlin, more than 500 km (310 miles) from Steenbergen. Welter claimed his Mosquito at 23:05 hours near Gütersloh, and recent research indicates that it was actually an intruder Mosquito FB.VI PZ177 of No. 23 Squadron. The crew, Flying Officer K. Eastwood and navigator Flight Lieutenant G.G. Rogers, were both killed.
Gibson was possibly not where others might have expected him to be. During the briefing for the raid, he was advised to use an exit route that would put him over France. However, he disagreed and insisted he would return by the shortest route at low level.
Posthumous tributes
Gibson's death was formally announced on 8 January 1945. However, many knew of his loss before this date.
On 19 December 1944, Churchill wrote to Eve Gibson:
In his introduction to Enemy Coast Ahead, Sir Arthur Harris described Gibson as:
Barnes Wallis said of Gibson:
Personal life
Gibson met Eve Moore, a show dancer and actress, in December 1939 when she was performing in the revue Come Out To Play at the New Hippodrome Theatre, Coventry. He later claimed that they met at a party. She claimed he saw the revue three nights in succession before introducing himself to her on the fourth and accompanying her to a cast party.
She was born Evelyn Mary Moore in Penarth, Wales, on 27 December 1911, which made her seven years older than Gibson. He became infatuated with her and travelled to meet her during his leave whenever he could as the revue progressed around the country. He also found opportunities to pursue her while on duty. He volunteered to fly Hampdens to RAF St Athan, only twelve miles from Cardiff and conveniently close to Penarth. He managed to arrange a stopover in Glasgow when travelling to Lossiemouth.
Gibson proposed to Eve in October 1940 and she accepted. On 21 November, he flew down to Cardiff in a Blenheim. They were married in Penarth's Anglican Church on 23 November. Gibson's Aunt Gwennie and Uncle John attended, but reports that Gibson's father attended his wedding with his new wife are regarded as untrue.
Eve returned with him to Lincolnshire. They lodged in a bed-sit room in the Lion and Royal pub in Navenby. She was on her own most of the time and quickly became very unhappy. When No. 29 Squadron moved to West Malling, they moved into a cottage, Clare Cottage. She joined in the station's social life taking part in revues and musicals. She could also travel more easily to London from Kent. When Gibson was posted to Cranfield, she decided to return to Penarth. In summer 1942 she found a job in London and moved there, where she shared a flat with a girlfriend. They both had casual relationships outside their marriage.. They last met in August 1944 around Gibson's birthday, and he seems to have been ready to discuss a divorce, although she seemed to want to try again when the war had finished.
After Gibson's death, Eve moved to South Africa in 1948 to marry Jack Hyman, a South African businessman. They divorced and she returned to Britain in 1954. She reverted to the surname Gibson, so many people did not realise she had remarried. She died on 3 November 1988, the same day as Harold Martin.
In the early 1990s, during research for his book, Richard Morris interviewed Margaret Masters, who formed a close relationship with Gibson during late 1942–44. As Margaret North, she was a member of the medical team called out on 8 December 1942 from RAF Rauceby to RAF Syerston to attend to Group Captain Walker. She was a WAAF corporal and a theatre nurse in the Crash and Burn Unit. When Gibson returned to Rauceby the following day to visit Walker, she and Gibson started talking and he asked her out. They would visit pubs and go to the cinema. As she was part of the RAF, she understood his world and she became his confidante. She helped him with an incident of operational stress in mid-January 1943. As he was married and therefore unavailable, in February 1943 she decided to marry someone else. They kept in contact and Gibson became her son's godfather. She moved to live with her mother in Bognor Regis and they met there for the last time in summer 1944.
Postwar legacy
Steenbergen
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) maintains Gibson's and Warwick's graves, which are still in Steenbergen's Catholic Cemetery. After the war, the CWGC suggested the graves be moved back to the United Kingdom or to their cemetery in nearby Bergen op Zoom. However, both Eve and Gibson's father preferred that they be left where they fell.
The town of Steenbergen has since honoured Gibson and Warwick by naming a street after each of them (Gibsonstraat and Warwickstraat); as well as after the Lancaster and the Mosquito. The Gibsonstraat and Warwickstraat are in the vicinity of the fatal crash; the exact location is marked by brick mosaics of the British flag and the year "1944" at 5, Mosquitostraat, between the ends of Gibsonstraat and Warwickstraat.
Also in Steenbergen is the Dambusters Memorial Park. In the park is a memorial to Gibson and Warwick. It is a granite stone topped by the twisted propeller of a Lancaster. It was unveiled by Group Captain Leonard Cheshire on 7 May 1990.
Also there has been a local council initiative that has achieved a citywalk named after Guy Gibson, named "the Gibson walking route", available free of charge, at any local tourist office. The route goes past all relevant places connected to Warwick and Gibsons last flight, their crashsite and honoured graves. Also there has been a small exhibition at the local Hotel Aarden, next to the town entrance and harbour. This is maintained by a local living Englishman and with kind help from (modern) ex-No. 617 Squadron crew members. The RAF have an annual visit planned to visit and honour the Fallen in Steenbergen. No. 617 Squadron was disbanded in 2014, but was later reformed to be the first RAF squadron with the newest fighter aircraft, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, in 2018.
Porthleven
As Gibson had family connections, the Cornish fishing village of Porthleven has named a street after Gibson, Gibson Way. There is a memorial in the village cemetery bearing his name. His name also appears on the village War Memorial overlooking the harbour.
A plaque commemorating Gibson has been mounted in the harbour-facing wall of the institute at Porthleven, located at the southern end of Institute Hill. It reads:
Publication of Enemy Coast Ahead
Gibson's book, Enemy Coast Ahead, was first serialized in the Sunday Express during December 1944. The book was published in February 1946 by Michael Joseph and was very well received. It has remained in print most of the time since 1946. A new edition of the work was issued by Greenhill Books in 2019, with additional material by Robert Owen, Official Historian of the No. 617 Squadron Association, and historian and broadcaster James Holland.
Film portrayal
A 1955 film, The Dam Busters, was made of the exploits of No. 617 Squadron; Gibson was played by Richard Todd in the film.
Fiction
Gibson appears as a fictionalized character in Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships, the authorised sequel to The Time Machine''. Barnes Wallis also has a role in this story.
Commemorative plaque
To commemorate Gibson's residency there is a blue plaque at 32 Aberdeen Place, St John's Wood, north London.
A plaque also marks the house of Eve's parents, where he and Eve occasionally lived between their marriage and 1943, at 1 Archer Road, Penarth.
Honours, awards and citations
Gibson's Victoria Cross and other medals are on display at the Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, England.
Initially Eve Gibson presented them to the Imperial War Museum. However, in 1956 she presented them to Gibson's father. He wore them to the Remembrance Day parade in 1956. He then passed them on to St Edward's School and they were placed in the school's memorial library until his death in 1968.
Notes
References
Sources
Books
Newspapers
Journals
Websites
— "This item is part of a larger file. Go to CHAR 20/141A-B for the other documents (items) in the file".
External links
Wartime interview with Guy Gibson in 1943
Gibson's Medals at the RAF Museum
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1918 births
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British people in colonial India |
422293 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS%20Sailfish%20%28SS-192%29 | USS Sailfish (SS-192) | USS Sailfish (SS-192), was a US , originally named Squalus. As Squalus, the submarine sank off the coast of New Hampshire during test dives on 23 May 1939. The sinking drowned 26 crew members, but an ensuing rescue operation, using the McCann Rescue Chamber for the first time, saved the lives of the remaining 33 aboard. Squalus was salvaged in late 1939 and recommissioned as Sailfish in May 1940.
As Sailfish, the vessel conducted numerous patrols in the Pacific War during World War II, earning nine battle stars. She was decommissioned in October 1945 and later scrapped. Her conning tower is on display at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine.
Construction and commissioning
Squaluss keel was laid on 18 October 1937 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, the only ship of the United States Navy named for the squalus, a type of shark. She was launched on 14 September 1938, sponsored by Mrs. Thomas C. Hart, wife of Admiral Thomas C. Hart, and commissioned on 1 March 1939 with Lieutenant Oliver F. Naquin in command.
Sinking of Squalus and recommissioning as Sailfish
On 12 May 1939, following a yard overhaul, Squalus began a series of test dives off Portsmouth, New Hampshire. After successfully completing 18 dives, she went down again off the Isles of Shoals on the morning of 23 May at . Failure of the main induction valve (the means of letting in fresh air when on the surface) caused the flooding of the aft torpedo room, both engine rooms, and the crew's quarters, drowning 26 men immediately. Quick action by the crew prevented the other compartments from flooding. Squalus bottomed in of water.
Squalus was initially located by her sister boat, . The two submarines were able to communicate using a telephone marker buoy until the cable parted. Divers from the submarine rescue ship began rescue operations under the direction of the salvage and rescue expert Lieutenant Commander Charles B. "Swede" Momsen, using the new McCann Rescue Chamber. The Senior Medical Officer for the operations was Dr. Charles Wesley Shilling. Overseen by researcher Albert R. Behnke, the divers used recently developed heliox diving schedules and successfully avoided the cognitive impairment symptoms associated with such deep dives, thereby confirming Behnke's theory of nitrogen narcosis. The divers were able to rescue all 33 survivors (32 crew members and a civilian) on board the sunken submarine. Four enlisted divers, Chief Machinist's Mate William Badders, Chief Boatswain's Mate Orson L. Crandall, Chief Metalsmith James H. McDonald and Chief Torpedoman John Mihalowski, were awarded the Medal of Honor for their work during the rescue and subsequent salvage. The successful rescue of the Squalus survivors is in marked contrast to the loss of in Liverpool Bay just a week later.
The navy authorities felt it important to raise her as she incorporated a succession of new design features. With a thorough investigation of why she sank, more confidence could be placed in the new construction, or alteration of existing designs could be undertaken when cheapest and most efficient to do so. Furthermore, given similar previous accidents in and (indeed, in , as far back as 1920), it was necessary to determine a cause.
The salvage of Squalus was commanded by Rear Admiral Cyrus W. Cole, Commander of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, who supervised salvage officer Lieutenant Floyd A. Tusler from the Construction Corps. Tusler's plan was to lift the submarine in three stages to prevent it from rising too quickly, out of control, with one end up, in which case there would be a high likelihood of it sinking again. For 50 days, divers worked to pass cables underneath the submarine and attach pontoons for buoyancy. On 13 July 1939, the stern was raised successfully, but when the men attempted to free the bow from the hard blue clay, the vessel began to rise far too quickly, slipping its cables. Ascending vertically, the submarine broke the surface, and of the bow reached into the air for not more than ten seconds before she sank once again all the way to the bottom. Momsen said of the mishap, "pontoons were smashed, hoses cut and I might add, hearts were broken." After 20 more days of preparation, with a radically redesigned pontoon and cable arrangement, the next lift was successful, as were two further operations. Squalus was towed into Portsmouth on 13 September, and decommissioned on 15 November. A total of 628 dives had been made in rescue and salvage operations.
Operational history of Sailfish
Renamed Sailfish on 9 February 1940, she became the first boat of the U.S. Navy named for the sailfish. After reconditioning, repair, and overhaul, she was recommissioned on 15 May 1940 with Lieutenant Commander Morton C. Mumma Jr. (Annapolis, Class of 1930) in command.
With refit completed in mid-September, Sailfish departed Portsmouth on 16 January 1941 and headed for the Pacific. Transiting the Panama Canal, she arrived at Pearl Harbor in early March, after refueling at San Diego. The submarine then sailed west to Manila where she joined the Asiatic Fleet until the attack on Pearl Harbor.
During the Pacific War, the captain of the renamed boat issued standing orders if any man on the boat said the word "Squalus", he was to be marooned at the next port of call. This led to crew members referring to their boat as "Squailfish". That went over almost as well; a court martial was threatened for anyone heard using it.
World War II
First five patrols: December 1941 – August 1942
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Sailfish departed Manila on her first war patrol, destined for the west coast of Luzon. Early on 10 December, she sighted a landing force, supported by cruisers and destroyers, but could not gain firing position. On the night of 13 December, she made contact with two Japanese destroyers and began a submerged attack; the destroyers detected her, dropping several depth charges, while Sailfish fired two torpedoes. Despite a large explosion nearby, no damage was done, and the destroyers counterattacked with 18–20 depth charges. She returned to Manila on 17 December.
Her second patrol (now under the command of Richard G. Voge begun on 21 December, took the submarine to waters off Formosa. On the morning of 27 January 1942, off Halmahera, near Davao, she sighted a , making a daylight submerged attack with four torpedoes, and reporting the target was damaged, for which she got credit. However, the damage could not be assessed since the cruiser's two escorts forced Sailfish to dive deep and run silent. Running at , the submarine eluded the destroyers and proceeded south toward Java. She arrived at Tjilatjap on 14 February for refueling and rearming.
Departing on 19 February for her third patrol, she headed through Lombok Strait to the Java Sea. After sighting the heavy cruiser and two escorts heading for Sunda Strait following the Allied defeat in the Battle of the Java Sea, Sailfish intercepted an enemy destroyer on 2 March. Following an unsuccessful attack, she was forced to dive deep to escape the ensuing depth charge attack from the destroyer and patrol aircraft. That night, near the mouth of Lombok Strait, she spotted what appeared to be the aircraft carrier , escorted by four destroyers. Sailfish fired four torpedoes, scoring two hits. Leaving the target aflame and dead in the water, Sailfish dove, the escorts delivering forty depth charges in the next 90 minutes. She eluded destroyers and aircraft and arrived at Fremantle, Western Australia, on 19 March, to great fanfare, believed to be the first U.S. sub to have sunk an enemy carrier. In reality, the Kaga was scuttled in June, 1942, after damage sustained during the Battle of Midway, in that vicinity. Postwar, it was revealed Kaga had been nowhere in the area of Lombok Strait, and the target had in fact been the aircraft ferry Kamogawa Maru, still a valuable target.
The Java Sea and Celebes Sea were the areas of Sailfishs fourth patrol, from 22 March–21 May. After delivering 1,856 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition to "MacArthur's guerrillas", she made only one ship contact and was unable to attack the target before returning to Fremantle.
The submarine's fifth patrol—from 13 June through 1 August—was off the coast of Indochina in the South China Sea. On 4 July, she intercepted and tracked a large freighter, but discovered the intended target was a hospital ship and held her fire. On 9 July, she intercepted and torpedoed a Japanese freighter. One of a pair of torpedoes struck home and the ship took a 15° list. As Sailfish went deep, a series of explosions were heard, and no further screw noises were detected. When the submarine surfaced in the area 90 minutes later, no ship was in sight. She was credited during the war with a 7000 ton ship, and although postwar examination of Japanese records confirmed no sinking in the area on that date, the Sailfish had damaged the Japanese transport ship Aobasan Maru (8811 GRT) off the coast of Indochina in position 11°31'N, 109°21'E.
Sailfish observed only one other enemy vessel before the end of the patrol.
Sixth and seventh patrols: September 1942 – January 1943
Shifting her base of operations to Brisbane, Sailfish (now under the command of John R. "Dinty" Moore) got underway for her sixth patrol on 13 September and headed for the western Solomon Islands. On the night of 17–18 September, she encountered eight Japanese destroyers escorting a cruiser, but she was unable to attack. On 19 September, she attacked a minelayer. The spread of three torpedoes missed, and Sailfish was forced to dive deep to escape the depth charge counterattack. Eleven well-placed charges went off near the submarine, causing much minor damage. Sailfish returned to Brisbane on 1 November.
Underway for her seventh patrol on 24 November, Sailfish proceeded to the area south of New Britain. Following an unsuccessful attack on a destroyer on 2 December, the submarine made no other contacts until 25 December, when she believed she had scored a hit on a Japanese submarine. Postwar analysis of Japanese records could not confirm a sinking in the area. During the remainder of the patrol, she made unsuccessful attacks on a cargo ship and a destroyer before ending the patrol at Pearl Harbor on 15 January 1943.
Eighth and ninth patrols: May–September 1943
After an overhaul at Mare Island Naval Shipyard from 27 January–22 April, Sailfish returned to Pearl Harbor on 30 April. Departing Hawaii on 17 May for her eighth patrol, she stopped off to fuel at Midway Island and proceeded to her station off the east coast of Honshū. Several contacts were made but, because of bad weather, were not attacked. On 15 June, she encountered two freighters off Todo Saki, escorted by three subchasers. Firing a spread of three stern torpedoes, she observed one hit which stopped the maru dead in the water. Sailfish was driven down by the escort, but listened on her sound gear as Shinju Maru broke up and sank. Ten days later, she found a second convoy, three ships with a subchaser and, unusually, an aircraft, for escort. Sailfish once more fired three stern tubes, sinking Iburi Maru; in response, the subchaser, the aircraft, and three additional escorts, pinned her down in a gruelling depth charge attack lasting 10 hours and 98 charges but causing only slight damage. After shaking loose pursuit, she set course for Midway on 26 June, arriving there on 3 July.
Her ninth patrol (commanded by William R. Lefavour) lasted from 25 July–16 September and covered the Formosa Strait and waters off Okinawa. It produced only two contacts (a 2500 ton steamer at Naha, Okinawa, and a junk), but no worthwhile targets, and Sailfish thereafter returned to Pearl Harbor.
Tenth patrol: November 1943 – January 1944
After refit at Pearl Harbor, she departed (under the command of Robert E. McC. Ward) with a rejuvenated crew, on 17 November for her 10th patrol, which took her south of Honshū. Along the way, she suffered a "hot run" in tube eight (aft), and (after the skipper himself went over the side to inspect the damage) ejected the torpedo; the tube remained out of commission for the duration of the patrol.
After refueling at Midway, she was alerted by ULTRA of a fast convoy of Japanese ships before she arrived on station. Southeast of Yokosuka, on the night of 3 December, she made radar contact at . The group consisted of the Japanese aircraft carrier , a cruiser, and two destroyers. Despite high seas whipped up by typhoon winds, Sailfish maneuvered into firing position shortly after midnight on 3–4 December, dived to radar depth (just the radar aerial exposed), and fired four bow torpedoes at the carrier, at a range of , scoring two hits. She went deep to escape the escorting destroyers, which dropped 21 depth charges (only two close), reloaded, and at 02:00, surfaced to resume the pursuit. She found a mass of radar contacts, and a slow-moving target, impossible to identify in the miserable visibility. As dawn neared, she fired another spread of three bow "fish" from , scoring two more hits on the stricken carrier. Diving to elude the Japanese counter-attack, which was hampered by the raging seas, Sailfish came to periscope depth, and at 07:58 saw the carrier lying dead in the water, listing to port and down by the stern. Preparations to abandon ship were in progress.
Later in the morning, Sailfish fired another spread of three torpedoes, from only , scoring two final hits. Loud internal explosions and breaking-up noises were heard while the submarine dived to escape a depth charge attack. Abruptly, a cruiser appeared and, fearing that she would broach the surface, Sailfish went to , losing a chance at this new target. Shortly afterwards, the carrier Chūyō () went to the bottom, the first aircraft carrier sunk by an American submarine in the war, and the only major Japanese warship sunk by enemy action in 1943. In an ironic twist, Chūyō was carrying American prisoners of war from , the same boat that had helped locate and rescue Sailfish—then Squalus—over four years before. Twenty of the 21 US crew members from Sculpin were killed. None, however, were of the original rescue crew. 1,250 Japanese were also killed.
After escaping a strafing attack by a Japanese fighter on 7 December, she made contact and commenced tracking two cargo ships with two escorts on the morning of 13 December, south of Kyūshū. That night, she fired a spread of four torpedoes at the two freighters. Two solid explosions were heard, including an internal secondary explosion. Sailfish heard Totai Maru (3000 tons) break up and sink as the destroyers made a vigorous but inaccurate depth charge attack. When Sailfish caught up with the other freighter she was dead in the water, but covered by a screen of five destroyers. Rather than face suicidal odds, the submarine quietly left the area. On the night of 20 December, she intercepted an enemy hospital ship, which she left unmolested.
On 21 December, in the approach to Bungo Suido (Bungo Channel), Sailfish intercepted six large freighters escorted by three destroyers. With five torpedoes left, she fired a spread of three stern tubes, scoring two hits on the largest target. Diving to escape the approaching destroyers, the submarine detected breaking-up noises as Uyo Maru (6400 tons) went to the bottom; destroyers counterattacked with 31 depth charges, "some very close". Sailfish terminated her tenth patrol at Pearl Harbor on 5 January 1944. She claimed three ships for 35,729 tons, plus damage to one for 7000 tons, believed to be the most successful patrol by tonnage to date; postwar, it was reduced to two ships and (less Uyo Maru) 29,571 tons.
Eleventh patrol: July–September 1944
After an extensive overhaul at Mare Island—from 15–17 June—she returned to Hawaii and sailed on 9 July as part of a "wolfpack" ("Moseley's Maulers", commanded by Stan Moseley), with and , to prey on shipping in the Luzon–Formosa area. On the afternoon of 7 August, Sailfish and Greenling made contact with an enemy convoy. Sailfish maneuvered into firing position and fired a spread of three torpedoes at a medium tanker. One hit caused the tanker to disintegrate into a column of water, smoke and debris. It was not recorded in the postwar account. In fact the Sailfish had sunk the Japanese Kinshu Maru (238 GRT) in Luzon Strait in position 20°09'N, 121°19'E.
The next target was a battleship escorted by three destroyers, on which she made radar contact shortly after midnight on 18–19 August. At 01:35, after getting as close as she was able, , Sailfish fired all four bow tubes. One of the escorts ran into the path of two fish; the other two missed. While the destroyer must have been severely damaged or sunk, there was nothing in JANAC.
On 24 August, south of Formosa, Sailfish made radar contact with an enemy convoy consisting of four cargo ships escorted by two small patrol craft. Moving into firing position, Sailfish fired a salvo of four torpedoes, scoring two hits. The cargo ship Toan Maru (2100 tons) was enveloped in a cloud of smoke and shortly afterwards broke in two and sank. Surfacing after escaping a depth charge attack, Sailfish closed on a second cargo ship of the convoy, scoring two hits out of four torpedoes fired. The submarine's crew felt the cargo ship either had been sunk or badly damaged, but the sinking was not confirmed by JANAC postwar. Sailfish terminated her 11th patrol at Midway on 6 September; her wartime credit was four ships for 13,200 tons, a total reduced to just one of 2100 tons (Toan Maru) postwar.
Twelfth patrol: September–December 1944
Her 12th patrol—from 26 September through 11 December—was conducted between Luzon and Formosa, in company with and .
After passing through the edge of a typhoon, Sailfish arrived on station to perform lifeguard duty. On 12 October, staying surfaced in full view of enemy attackers, she rescued 12 Navy fliers who had ditched their stricken aircraft after strikes against Japanese bases on Formosa. She sank a sampan and a patrol craft with her deck gun as the enemy craft tried to capture the downed aviators. The following day, she rescued another flier. The submarines pulled into Saipan, arriving on 24 October, to drop off their temporary passengers, refuel, and make minor repairs.
After returning to the patrol area with the wolf pack, she made an unsuccessful attack on a transport on 3 November. The following day, Sailfish damaged the Japanese destroyer Harukaze and Japanese landing ship T-111 (890 tons) in Luzon Strait in position 20°08'N, 121°43'E but was slightly damaged herself by a bomb from a patrol aircraft. With battle damage under control, Sailfish eluded her pursuers and cleared the area. After riding out a typhoon on 9–10 November, she intercepted a convoy on the evening of 24 November heading for Itbayat in the Philippines. After alerting Pomfret of the convoy's location and course, Sailfish was moving into an attack position when one of the escorting destroyers headed straight for her. Sailfish fired a three-torpedo spread "down the throat" and headed toward the main convoy. At least one hit was scored on the destroyer and her pip faded from the radar screen. Suddenly, Sailfish received an unwelcome surprise when she came under fire from the destroyer that she had believed to be sunk. Sailfish ran deep after ascertaining there was no hull damage resulting from a near miss from the escort's guns. For the next 4 hours, Sailfish was forced to run silent and deep as the Japanese kept up an uncomfortably accurate depth-charge attack. Finally, the submarine was able to elude the destroyers and slip away. Shortly, Sailfish headed for Hawaii, via Midway, and completed her 12th and final war patrol upon arriving at Pearl Harbor on 11 December. Sailfish had damaged the IJN destroyer , which had previously sunk , and also a landing ship.
Return stateside
Following refit, Sailfish departed Hawaii on 26 December and arrived at New London, via the Panama Canal, on 22 January 1945. For the next four and one-half months, she aided training out of New London. Next, she operated as a training ship at Guantanamo Bay from 9 June–9 August. After a six-week stay at Philadelphia Navy Yard, she arrived at Portsmouth, New Hampshire on 2 October for deactivation.
Post war
After being decommissioned on 27 October 1945, efforts by the city of Portsmouth and area residents to have the submarine kept intact as a memorial were not successful. Agreement was reached to have her conning tower saved, which was dedicated in November 1946 on Armistice Day, by John L. Sullivan, then Under Secretary of the Navy. The remainder of the submarine was initially scheduled to be a target in the atomic bomb tests or sunk by conventional ordnance. However, she was placed on sale in March 1948 and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 30 April 1948. The hulk was sold for scrapping to Luria Brothers of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 18 June 1948. Her conning tower still stands at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery as a memorial to her lost crewmen ().
Honors and awards
Presidential Unit Citation for outstanding performance on her 10th war patrol
American Defense Service Medal
American Campaign Medal
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with nine battle stars for World War II service
World War II Victory Medal
In media
The 2001 television movie docudrama Submerged, directed by James Keach and starring Sam Neill as Charles B. "Swede" Momsen and James B. Sikking as Admiral Cyrus Cole, depicted the events surrounding the loss of USS Squalus and the rescue of her 33 survivors. The plot was written to closely follow the events of the sinking.
Submerged used models and sets originally constructed for the 2000 film U-571. The floating set used to in Submerged to represent both USS Squalus and USS Sculpin is the non-diving replica built in Malta as the "modified" for U-571, which also was shot in Malta. The replica is still afloat, moored in Marsa in the inner part of the Grand Harbour () at Malta.
In 2006, BBC TV presented a series of programmes entitled Voyages of Discovery the first of which, called "Hanging by a Thread", told the story of the USS Squalus rescue mission, as narrated by Paul Rose.
See also
, a British World War II submarine that sank in Liverpool Bay with the loss of 99 of 104 hands and was refloated and recommissioned under a new name.
Notes
Bibliography
Barrows, Nathaniel A. Blow All Ballast! The Story of the Squalus. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co, 1940.
Gray, Edwyn. Disasters of the Deep: A Comprehensive Survey of Submarine Accidents and Disasters. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 2003.
(Television movie. The film does not acknowledge any design flaw and claims the cause is unknown.)
LaVO, Carl. Back from the Deep: The Strange Story of the Sister Subs Squalus and Sculpin. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 1994.
Maas, Peter. The Rescuer. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
USS Squalus, Ship Source Files, Ships History Branch, Naval Historical Center
"Oliver Francis Naquin," Obituary, The New York Times, 15 November. 1989
Department's Report on "Squalus" Disaster. Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1939.
Naval Historical Center (U.S.). USS Squalus (SS-192) The Sinking, Rescue of Survivors, and Subsequent Salvage, 1939. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1998. http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq99-1.htm
Mariners' Museum (Newport News, Va.). Salvage of the Squalus: Clippings from Newspapers, 25 May 20 January 1939, 1941. Newport News, Va: Mariners' Museum, 1942.
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (U.S.). Technical Report of the Salvage of U.S.S. Squalus. Portsmouth, N.H.: U.S. Navy Yard, 1939.
Falcon (Salvage ship), and Albert R. Behnke. Log of Diving During Rescue and Salvage Operations of the USS Squalus: Diving Log of USS Falcon, 24 May 1939 – 12 September 1939. Kensington, Maryland: Reprinted by Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society, 2001
Diving in the U.S. Navy a brief history. http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS88384
References
Further reading
External links
Naval Historical Center, Online Library of Selected Images: USS Squalus/Sailfish (SS-192)
hazegray.org: USS Sailfish
fleetsubmarine.com: USS Sailfish
On Eternal Patrol: USS Squalus
Kill record: USS Sailfish
1938 ships
Maritime incidents in 1939
Sargo-class submarines
Ships built in Kittery, Maine
United States submarine accidents
World War II submarines of the United States |
422308 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue%20Fei | Yue Fei | Yue Fei (; March 24, 1103 – January 28, 1142), courtesy name Pengju () was a Chinese military general who lived during the Southern Song dynasty and considered a national hero of China, known for leading Southern Song forces in the wars in the 12th century between Southern Song and the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty in northern China. Because of his warlike stance, he was put to death by the Southern Song government in 1142 under a concocted charge, after a negotiated peace was achieved with the Jurchens. Yue Fei is depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu () by Jin Guliang.
Yue Fei's ancestral home was in Xiaoti, Yonghe Village, Tangyin, Xiangzhou, Henan (in present-day Tangyin County, Anyang, Henan). He was granted the posthumous name Wumu () by Emperor Xiaozong in 1169, and later granted the noble title King of È () posthumously by the Emperor Ningzong in 1211. Widely seen as a patriot and national folk hero in China, since his death Yue Fei has evolved into a paragon of loyalty in Chinese culture.
Biographies
Biography of Yue Fei
A biography of Yue Fei, the Eguo Jintuo Zubian (), was written 60 years after his death by his grandson, the poet and historian Yue Ke () (1183post 1240). In 1346 it was incorporated into the History of Song, a 496-chapter record of historical events and biographies of noted Song dynasty individuals, compiled by Yuan dynasty prime minister Toqto'a and others. Yue Fei's biography is found in the 365th chapter of the book and is numbered biography 124. Some later historians including Deng Guangming (1907–1998) now doubt the veracity of many of Yue Ke's claims about his grandfather.
According to the History of Song, Yue Fei was named "Fei", meaning to fly, because at the time he was born, "a large bird like a swan landed on the roof of his house".
General Yue Fei
Chronicle of Yue, Prince of E of Song
The Chronicle of Yue, Prince of E of Song () was written by Qian Ruwen () in 1924.
Birth and early life
Several sources state that Yue was born into a poor tenant farmer's family in Tangyin County, Anyang prefecture, Henan province. According to the Shuo Yue Quanzhuan, the immortal Chen Tuan, disguised as a wandering priest, warned Yue Fei's father, Yue He (), to put his wife and child inside a clay jar if the infant Yue Fei began to cry. A few days later, a young child squeezed Yue Fei's hand too hard and he began to cry. Soon, it began to rain and the Yellow River flooded, wiping out the village. Yue Fei's father held onto the clay jar as it was swept down the river, but eventually drowned. Although the much older Biography of Yue Fei also mentions the flood, it states Yue Huo survived. It reads,
After [the death of his teacher Zhou Tong], [Yue Fei] would offer sacrifices at his tomb. His father praised him for his faithfulness and asked him, "When you are employed to cope with the affairs of the time, will you then not have to sacrifice yourself for the empire and die for your duty?" ()
Yue Fei's father used his family's plot of land for humanitarian efforts, but after it was destroyed in the flood, the young Yue Fei was forced to help his father toil in the fields to survive. Yue received most of his primary education from his father. In 1122 Yue joined the army, but had to return home later that year after the death of his father. In ancient China, a person was required by law to temporarily resign from their job when their parents died so they could observe the customary period of mourning. For instance, Yue would have had to mourn his father's death for three years, but in all actually only 27 months. During this time, he would wear coarse mourning robes, caps, and slippers, while abstaining from silken garments. When his mother died in 1136, he retired from a decisive battle against the Jin dynasty for the mourning period, but he was forced to cut the bereavement short because his generals begged him to come back.
Shuo Yue Quanzhuan gives a very detailed fictional account of Yue's early life. The novel states after being swept from Henan to Hubei, Yue and his mother are saved by the country squire Wang Ming () and are permitted to stay in Wang's manor as domestic helpers. The young Yue Fei later becomes the adopted son and student of the Wang family's teacher, Zhou Tong, a famous master of military skills. (Zhou Tong is not to be confused with the similarly named "Little Tyrant" in Water Margin.) Zhou teaches Yue and his three sworn brothers – Wang Gui (), Tang Huai () and Zhang Xian () – literary lessons on odd days and military lessons, involving archery and the eighteen weapons of war, on even days.
After years of practice, Zhou Tong enters his students into the Tangyin County military examination, in which Yue Fei wins first place by shooting a succession of nine arrows through the bullseye of a target 240 paces away. After this display of archery, Yue is asked to marry the daughter of Li Chun (), an old friend of Zhou and the county magistrate who presided over the military examination. However, Zhou soon dies of an illness and Yue lives by his grave through the winter until the second month of the new year when his sworn brothers come and tear it down, forcing him to return home and take care of his mother.
Yue eventually marries and later participates in the imperial military examination in the Song capital of Kaifeng. There, he defeats all competitors and even turns down an offer from Cai Gui (), the Prince of Liang, to be richly rewarded if he forfeits his chance for the military degree. This angers the prince and both agree to fight a private duel in which Yue kills the prince and is forced to flee the city for fear of being executed. Shortly thereafter, he joins the Song army to fight the invading armies of the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty.
The Yue Fei Biography states,
When [Yue] was born, a Peng flew crowing over the house, so his father named the child Fei [(飛 – "flight")]. Before [Yue] was even a month old, the Yellow River flooded, so his mother got inside of the center of a clay jar and held on to baby Yue. The violent waves pushed the jar down river, where they landed ashore ... Despite his family's poverty, [Yue Fei] was studious, and particularly favored the Zuo Zhuan edition of the Spring and Autumn Annals and the strategies of Sun Tzu and Wu Qi. ()
According to a book by martial arts master Liang Shouyu, "[A] Dapeng is a great bird that lived in ancient China. Legend has it, that Dapeng Jinchi Mingwang was the guardian that stayed above the head of Gautama Buddha. Dapeng could get rid of all evil in any area. Even the Monkey King was no match for it. During the Song dynasty the government was corrupt and foreigners were constantly invading China. Sakyamuni sent Dapeng down to earth to protect China. Dapeng descended to Earth and was born as Yue Fei."
Martial training
The Biography of Yue Fei states, "Yue Fei possessed supernatural power and before his adulthood, he was able to draw a bow of 300 catties () and a crossbow of eight stone (960 catties, ). Yue Fei learned archery from Zhou Tong. He learned everything and could shoot with his left and right hands." Shuo Yue Quanzhuan states Zhou teaches Yue and his sworn brothers archery and all of the eighteen weapons of war. This novel also says Yue was Zhou's third student after Lin Chong and Lu Junyi of the 108 outlaws in Water Margin. The E Wang Shi records, "When Yue Fei reached adulthood, his maternal grandfather, Yao Daweng (), hired a spear expert, Chen Guang, to teach Yue Fei spear fighting."
Both the Biography of Yue Fei and E Wang Shi mention Yue learning from Zhou and Chen at or before his adulthood. The Chinese character representing "adulthood" in these sources is ji guan (), an ancient Chinese term that means "20 years old" where a young man was able to wear a formal headdress as a social status of adulthood. So he gained all of his martial arts knowledge by the time he joined the army at the age of 19.
These chronicles do not mention Yue's masters teaching him martial arts style; just archery, spearplay and military tactics. However non-historical or scholarly sources state, in addition to those already mentioned, Zhou Tong taught Yue other skills such as hand-to-hand combat and horseback riding. Yet again, these do not mention any specific martial arts style. One legend says Zhou took young Yue to an unspecified place to meet a Buddhist hermit who taught him the Emei Dapeng qigong () style. This is supposedly the source of his legendary strength and martial arts abilities. According to thirteenth generation lineage Tai He ("Great Harmony") Wudangquan master Fan Keping (), Zhou Tong was a master of various "hard qigong" exercises.
Yue Fei's tattoo
According to historical records and legend, Yue had the four Chinese characters jin zhong bao guo () tattooed across his back. The Biography of Yue Fei says after Qin Hui sent agents to arrest Yue and his son, he was taken before the court and charged with treason, but
Yue ripped his jacket to reveal the four tattooed characters of "serve the country with the utmost loyalty" on his back. This proved that he was clearly innocent of the charges.
Later fictionalizations of Yue's biography would build upon the tattoo. For instance, one of his earliest Ming era novels titled The Story of King Yue Who Restored the Song dynasty () states that after the Jurchen armies invaded China, young heroes in Yue's village suggest that they join the bandits in the mountains. However, Yue objects and has one of them tattoo the aforementioned characters on his back. Whenever others want to join the bandits, he flashes them the tattoo to change their minds.
The common legend of Yue receiving the tattoo from his mother first appeared in Shuo Yue Quanzhuan, a historical novel. In chapter 21 titled "By a pretext Wang Zuo swore brotherhood, by tattoos Lady Yue instructed her son", Yue denounces the pirate chief Yang Yao () and passes on a chance to become a general in his army. Yue Fei's mother then tells her son, "I, your mother, saw that you did not accept recruitment of the rebellious traitor, and that you willingly endure poverty and are not tempted by wealth and status ... But I fear that after my death, there may be some unworthy creature who will entice you ... For these reason ... I want to tattoo on your back the four characters 'Utmost', 'Loyalty', 'Serve' and 'Nation' ... The Lady picked up the brush and wrote out on his spine the four characters for 'serving the nation with the utmost loyalty' ... [So] she bit her teeth, and started pricking. Having finished, she painted the characters with ink mixed with vinegar so that the colour would never fade."
However, the truthfulness of this legend is disputed by modern historians. Documentation before the Qing dynasty record that Yue Fei had hired a tattoo artist to tattoo the four characters on his back. Such documentations appeared in Wumu Jingzhong Zhuan, a novel published in the Ming dynasty, while Shuo Yue Quanzhuan (General Yue Fei) was published in the Qing dyansty.
The Kaifeng Jews, one of many pockets of Chinese Jews living in ancient China, refer to this tattoo in two of their three stele monuments created in 1489, 1512, and 1663. The first mention appeared in a section of the 1489 stele referring to the Jews' "Boundless loyalty to the country and Prince". The second appeared in a section of the 1512 stele about how Jewish soldiers and officers in the Chinese armies were "boundlessly loyal to the country".
Adult life
Portrait
Southern Song era artist Liu Songnian () (1174–1224), who was best known for his realistic works, painted a picture, "Four Generals of the Restoration" (). The group portrait shows eight people – four generals and four attendants. Starting from the left: attendant, Yue Fei, attendant, Zhang Jun (), Han Shizhong (), attendant, Liu Guangshi (), and attendant.
According to history professor He Zongli of Zhejiang University, the painting shows Yue was more of a scholarly-looking general with a shorter stature and chubbier build than the statue of him currently displayed in his tomb in Hangzhou, which portrays him as being tall and skinny. Shen Lixin, an official with the Yue Fei Temple Administration, holds the portrait of Yue Fei from the "Four Generals of the Restoration" to be the most accurate likeness of the general in existence.
Character
In his From Myth to Myth: The Case of Yüeh Fei's Biography, noted Sinologist Hellmut Wilhelm concluded that Yue Fei purposely patterned his life after famous Chinese heroes from dynasties past and that this ultimately led to his martyrdom. Apart from studying literature under his father Yue He (), Yue Fei loved to read military classics. He favored the Zuo Zhuan commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals and the strategies of Sun Tzu and Wu Qi. Although his literacy afforded him the chance to become a scholar, which was a position held in much higher regard than the common soldiery during the Song dynasty, Yue chose the military path because there had never been any tradition of civil service in his family. Therefore he had no reason to study Confucian classics in order to surpass the accomplishments of his ancestors or to raise his family's social status to the next level. His fourth generation ancestor, Yue Huan (), had served as a lingshi () (essentially a low-level functionary), but he was never a full-fledged member of the civil service rank. A second theory is that he joined the military in the hopes of emulating his favorite heroes.
Scholars were always welcome in Yue Fei's camp. He allowed them to come and tell stories and deeds of past heroes to bolster the resolve of his men. This way he was able to teach them about the warriors that he had constructed his own life after. He also hoped that one of these scholars would record his own deeds so he would become a peer amongst his idols. He is recorded in saying that he wished to be considered the equal of Guan Yu and other such famous men from the Three Kingdoms period. Yue succeeded in this endeavor since later "official mythology" placed him on the same level as Guan Yu.
Yue was careful to conduct himself as the ideal Confucian gentleman at all times for fear that any misconduct would be recorded and criticized by people of later dynasties. However he had his faults. He had a problem with alcohol during the early part of his military career. Yue drank in great excess because he believed it fitted the image of heroes of old. However once he nearly killed a colleague in a drunken rage, the emperor made him promise not to drink any more until the Jurchen invaders had been driven away.
Family
According to Shuo Yue Quanzhuan, Yue had five sons and one daughter. The History of Song records that Yue Yun (; 1119–1142) was adopted by Yue Fei at the age of 12 whilst others claim he was his biological son; Yue Lei (), the second, succeeded to his father's post; Yue Ting () was the third; Yue Lin () was the fourth; and Yue Zhen (), the fifth, was still young at the time of his father's death. Yue Yinping was Yue Fei's daughter. The novel states she committed suicide after her father's death and became a fairy in heaven. However, history books do not mention her name and therefore she should be considered a fictional character. Yue Fei married the daughter of Magistrate Li in 1119 when he was 16 years old. However, the account of his marriage is fictional.
The Biography of Yue Fei states that Yue left his ailing mother with his first wife while he went to fight the Jin armies. However she "left him (and his mother) and remarried". He later took a second wife and even discussed "affairs" pertaining to his military career with her. He truly loved her, but his affection for her was second to his desire to rid China of the Jurchen invaders. Her faithfulness to him and his mother was strengthened by the fear that any infidelity or lacking in her care of Lady Yue would result in reprisal.
Yue forbade his sons from having concubines, although he almost took one himself. Even though she was presented by a friend, he did not accept her because she laughed when he asked her if she could "share the hardships of camp life" with him. He knew she was liberal and would have sex with the other soldiers.
Though not mentioned in the memoir written by Yue Fei's grandson, some scholarly sources claim Yue had a younger brother named Yue Fan (). He later served in the army under his brother and died in battle in 1132.
Military record
The son of an impoverished farmer from northern China, Yue Fei joined the Song military in 1122. Yue briefly left the army when his father died in 1123, but returned in 1126. After reenlisting, he fought to suppress rebellions by local Chinese warlords responsible for looting in northern China. Local uprisings had diverted needed resources away from the Song's war against the Jin. Yue participated in defending Kaifeng during the second siege of the city by the Jin in 1127. After Kaifeng fell, he joined an army in Jiankang tasked with defending the Yangtze. This army prevented the Jurchens from advancing to the river in 1129. His rising reputation as a military leader attracted the attention of the Song court. In 1133, he was made the general of the largest army near the Central Yangtze. Between 1134 and 1135, he led a counteroffensive against Qi, a puppet state supported by the Jin, and secured territories that had been conquered by the Jurchens. He continued to advance in rank, and to increase the size of his army as he repeatedly led successful offensives into northern China. Several other generals were also successful against the Jin dynasty, and their combined efforts secured the survival of the Song dynasty. Yue, like most of them, was committed to recapturing northern China.
Stone Lake: The Poetry of Fan Chengda 1126–1193 states, "...Yue Fei ([1103]-1141)...repelled the enemy assaults in 1133 and 1134, until in 1135 the now confident Song army was in a position to recover all of north China from the Jin dynasty ... [In 1140,] Yue Fei initiated a general counterattack against the Jin armies, defeating one enemy after another until he set up camp within range of the Northern Song dynasty's old capital city, Kaifeng, in preparation for the final assault against the enemy. Yet in the same year Qin [Hui] ordered Yue Fei to abandon his campaign, and in 1141 Yue Fei was summoned back to the Southern Song capital. It is believed that the emperor then ordered Yue Fei to be hanged."
Six methods for deploying an army
Yue Ke () states his grandfather had six special methods for deploying an army effectively:
Careful selection He relied more on small numbers of well-trained soldiers than he did large masses of the poorly trained variety. In this way, one superior soldier counted for as much as one hundred inferior soldiers. One example used to illustrate this was when the armies of Han Ching and Wu Xu were transferred into Yue's camp. Most of them had never seen battle and were generally too old or unhealthy for sustaining prolonged troop movement and engagement of the enemy. Once Yue had filtered out the weak soldiers and sent them home, he was only left with a meager thousand able-bodied soldiers. However, after some months of intense training, they were ready to perform almost as well as the soldiers who had served under Yue for years.
Careful training When his troops were not on military campaigns to win back lost Chinese territory in the north, Yue put his men through intense training. Apart from troop movement and weapons drills, this training also involved them leaping over walls and crawling through moats in full battle garb. The intensity of the training was such that the men would not even try to visit their families if they passed by their homes while on movement and even trained on their days off.
Justice in rewards and punishments He rewarded his men for their merits and punished them for their boasting or lack of training. Yue once gave a foot soldier his own personal belt, silver dinner ware, and a promotion for his meritorious deeds in battle. While on the reverse, he once ordered his son Yue Yun to be decapitated for falling off his horse after failing to jump a moat. His son was only saved after Yue's officers begged his mercy. There were a number of soldiers that were either dismissed or executed because they boasted of their skills or failed to follow orders.
Clear orders He always delivered his orders in a simple manner that was easy for all of his soldiers to understand. Whoever failed to follow them were severely punished.
Strict discipline While marching about the countryside, he never let his troops destroy fields or to pillage towns or villages. He made them pay a fair price for goods and made sure crops remained intact. A soldier once stole a hemp rope from a peasant so he could tie a bale of hay with it. When Yue discovered this, he questioned the soldier and had him executed.
Close fellowship with his men He treated all of his men like equals. He ate the same food as they did and slept out in the open as they did. Even when a temporary shelter was erected for him, he made sure several soldiers could find room to sleep inside before he found a spot of his own. When there was not enough wine to go around, he would dilute it with water so every soldier would receive a portion.
Death
In 1126, several years before Yue became a general, the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty invaded northern China, forcing the Song dynasty out of its capital Kaifeng and capturing Emperor Qinzong of Song, who was sent into captivity in Huining Prefecture. This marked the end of the Northern Song dynasty, and the beginning of the Southern Song dynasty under Emperor Gaozong.
Yue fought a long campaign against the invading Jurchen in an effort to retake northern China. Just as he was threatening to attack and retake Kaifeng, officials advised Emperor Gaozong to recall Yue to the capital and sue for peace with the Jurchen. Fearing that a defeat at Kaifeng might cause the Jurchen to release Emperor Qinzong, threatening his claim to the throne, Emperor Gaozong followed their advice, sending 12 orders in the form of 12 gold plaques to Yue Fei, recalling him back to the capital. Knowing that a success at Kaifeng could lead to internal strife, Yue submitted to the emperor's orders and returned to the capital, where he was imprisoned and where Qin Hui would eventually arrange for him to be executed on false charges.
There are conflicting views on how Yue died. According to The History of China: (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations) and other sources, Yue died in prison. The Chronicle of Yue, Prince of E of Song says he was killed in prison. Shuo Yue Quanzhuan states he was strangled to death. It reads, "...[Yue Fei] strode in long steps to the Pavilion of Winds and Waves ... The warders on both sides picked up the ropes and strangled the three men [Yue Fei, Yue Yun, and Zhang Xian (), Yue's subordinate] without further ado ... At the time Lord Yue was 39 years of age and the young lord Yue Yun 23. When the three men returned to Heaven, suddenly a fierce wind rose up wildly and all the fires and lights were extinguished. Black mists filled the sky and sand and pebbles were blown about."
The Secrets of Eagle Claw Kung Fu: Ying Jow Pai comments, "Finally, [Yue Fei] received the 'Twelfth Golden Edict' [from the emperor calling him back to the capital], which if ignored meant banishment. Patriotism demanded that he obey. On his way back to the capital he stopped to rest at a pavilion. Qin Hui anticipated Yue Fei's route and sent some men to lie in wait. When Yue Fei arrived, Qin's men ambushed and murdered him. Just 39 years old, Yue Fei like many good men in history, had a swift, brilliant career, then died brutally while still young."
According to A Chinese Biographical Dictionary, "[Father and son] had not been two months in confinement when Qin Hui resolved to rid himself of his enemy. He wrote out with his own hand an order for the execution of Yue Fei, which was forthwith carried into effect; whereupon he immediate reported that Yue Fei had died in prison", which meant that Qin Hui had Yue and his son executed but reported they both died in captivity.
Other sources say he was poisoned to death. Still, a great number simply say he was executed, murdered, or "treacherously assassinated".
After Yue's execution, a prison officer, Wei Shun (), who admired Yue's character, stole his body and secretly buried it at the Nine Song Cong Temple () located outside the Song capital.
Qin Hui's posthumous punishment
Shuo Yue Quanzhuan states after having Yue Fei, Yue Yun, Zhang Xian arrested under false charges, Qin Hui and his wife, Lady Wang (), were sitting by the "eastern window", warming themselves by the fire, when he received a letter from the people calling for the release of Yue Fei. Qin was worried because after nearly two months of torture, he could not get Yue to admit to treason and would eventually have to let him go. However, after a servant girl brought fresh oranges into the room, Lady Wang devised a plan to execute Yue. She told Qin to slip an execution notice inside the skin of an orange and send it to the judge presiding over Yue's case. This way, Yue and his companions would be put to death before the emperor or Qin himself would have to rescind an open order of execution. This conspiracy became known as the "East Window Plot". A novel about this incident, titled Dong Chuang Ji (; "Tale of the Eastern Window"), was written during the Ming dynasty by an anonymous writer.
When confronted by Han Shizhong on what crime Yue had committed, Qin Hui replied, "Though it isn't sure whether there is something that he did to betray the dynasty, maybe there is." The phrase "perhaps there is", "no reason needed", "groundless", or "baseless" () has entered the Chinese language as a proverb to refer to fabricated charges, which also means 'trumped-up charge', 'setup', 'frameup', or 'concocted charge' in English.
Decades later, his grandson, Yue Ke (), had retrieved documentary evidence of his grandfather's achievements, and published an adulatory biography of him. In 1162 Emperor Xiaozong of Song posthumously dissolved his unjust charges and rehabilitated his honours. For their part in Yue's death, iron statues of Qin Hui, Lady Wang, and two of Qin's subordinates, Moqi Xie () and Zhang Jun (), were made to kneel before Yue Fei's tomb (located by the West Lake, Hangzhou). For centuries, these statues were cursed, spat on, and urinated upon by people. The original castings in bronze were damaged, but later were replaced by images cast in iron, but these were similarly damaged. However now, in modern times, these statues are protected as historical relics. There is a poem hanging on the gate surrounding the statues that reads, "The green hill is fortunate to be the burial ground of a loyal general, the white iron was innocent to be cast into the statues of traitors." Emperor Xiaozong's court gave proper burial to his remains after Wei Shun's family revealed its location; Wei Shun was then posthumously honored at Yue Fei's hometown at Tangyin County, and a statue of him was made standing at its Yue Fei Temple. A [tomb] was put up in his memory, and he was designated Wumu (; "Martial and Stern"). In 1179 he was canonized as Zhongwu (; "Loyal and Martial").
According to the novel Xi You Bu, a satire of Journey to the West, written in 1641 by the scholar Dong Ruoyu (also known as Dong Yue, 1620–1686), the Monkey King enthusiastically serves in hell as the trial prosecutor of Qin Hui, while Yue Fei becomes the Monkey King's third master (by teaching the latter Confucian methods). At one point, the Monkey King asks the spirit of Yue Fei if he would like to drink Qin's blood, but he politely declined.
Talents
Martial arts
The two styles most associated with Yue are Eagle Claw and xingyiquan. One book states Yue created Eagle Claw for his enlisted soldiers and xingyiquan for his officers. Legend has it that Yue studied in the Shaolin Monastery with a monk named Zhou Tong and learned the "elephant" style of boxing, a set of hand techniques with great emphasis on qinna (joint-locking). Other tales say he learned this style elsewhere outside the temple under the same master. Yue eventually expanded elephant style to create the Yibai Lingba Qinna (; "108 Locking Hand Techniques") of the Ying Sao (Eagle Hands) or Ying Kuen (Eagle Fist). After becoming a general in the imperial army, Yue taught this style to his men and they were very successful in battle against the armies of the Jin dynasty. Following his wrongful execution and the disbandment of his armies, Yue's men supposedly traveled all over China spreading the style, which eventually ended right back in Shaolin where it began. Later, a monk named Li Quan () combined this style with fanziquan, another style attributed to Yue, to create the modern day form of Northern Ying Jow Pai boxing.
According to legend, Yue combined his knowledge of internal martial arts and spearplay learned from Zhou Tong (in Shaolin) to create the linear fist attacks of xingyiquan. One book claims he studied and synthesized Buddhism's Tendon Changing and Marrow Washing qigong systems to create xingyiquan. On the contrary, proponents of wudangquan believe it is possible that Yue learned the style in the Wudang Mountains that border his home province of Henan. The reasons they cite for this conclusion are that he supposedly lived around the same time and place as Zhang Sanfeng, the founder of tai chi; xingyiquan'''s five fist attacks, which are based on the Five Chinese Elements theory, are similar to tai chi's "Yin-yang theory"; and both theories are Taoist-based and not Buddhist. The book Henan Orthodox Xingyiquan, written by Pei Xirong () and Li Ying'ang (), states xingyiquan master Dai Longbang
... wrote the 'Preface to Six Harmonies Boxing' in the 15th reign year of the Qianlong Emperor [1750]. Inside it says, '... when [Yue Fei] was a child, he received special instructions from Zhou Tong. He became extremely skilled in the spear method. He used the spear to create methods for the fist. He established a method called Yi Quan. Mysterious and unfathomable, followers of old did not have these skills. Throughout the Jin, Yuan and Ming dynasties few had his art. Only Ji Gong had it. ()Heart Chinese boxing emphasizing flexibility and confusing the opponent (Chinese only)
The man "Ji Gong" mentioned above, better known as Ji Jike () or Ji Longfeng (), is said to have trained in Shaolin Monastery for ten years as a young man and was matchless with the spear. As the story goes, he later traveled to Xongju Cave on Mount Zhongnan to receive a boxing manual written by Yue Fei, from which he learned xingyiquan. However, some believe Ji actually created the style himself and attributed it to Yue Fei because he was fighting the Manchus, descendants of the Jurchens who Yue had struggled against. Ji supposedly created it after watching a battle between an eagle and a bear during the Ming dynasty. Other sources say he created it while training in Shaolin. He was reading a book and looked up to see two roosters fighting, which inspired him to imitate the fighting styles of animals. Both versions of the story (eagle / bear and roosters) state he continued to study the actions of animals and eventually increased the cadre of animal forms.
Several other martial arts have been attributed to Yue Fei, including Yuejiaquan (Yue Family Boxing), Fanziquan (Tumbling Boxing), and Chuōjiǎo quan (Feet-Poking Boxing), among others.Fanzi Quan (Tumbling Chuan) The "Fanzi Boxing Ballad" says: "Wumu has passed down the Fanziquan which has mystery in its straightforward movements." Wumu () was a posthumous name given to Yue after his death. One Chuojiao legend states Zhou Tong learned the style from its creator, a wandering Taoist named Deng Liang (), and later passed it onto Yue Fei, who is considered to be the progenitor of the style.HISTORY & DEVELOPMENT OF CHUOJIAO
Besides martial arts, Yue is also said to have studied traditional Chinese medicine. He understood the essence of Hua Tuo's Wu Qin Xi (; "Five Animal Frolics") and created his own form of "medical qigong" known as the Ba Duan Jin (; "Eight Pieces of Brocade"). It is considered a form of Waidan (; "External Elixir") medical qigong.
He taught this qigong to his soldiers to help keep their bodies strong and well-prepared for battle.Yang, Jwing-Ming. Qigong Meditation: Embryonic Breathing. YMAA Publication Center, 2003 () One legend states that Zhou Tong took young Yue to meet a Buddhist hermit who taught him Emei Dapeng Qigong (). His training in Dapeng Qigong was the source of his great strength and martial arts abilities. Modern practitioners of this style say it was passed down by Yue.
Connection to Praying Mantis boxing
According to Shuo Yue Quanzhuan, Lin Chong and Lu Junyi of the 108 outlaws in Water Margin were former students of Yue's teacher Zhou Tong. One legend states Zhou learned Chuōjiǎo boxing from its originator Deng Liang () and then passed it onto Yue Fei, who is sometimes considered the progenitor of the style. Chuojiao is also known as the "Water Margin Outlaw style" and Yuanyang Tui (; "Mandarin Duck Leg"). In chapter 29 of Water Margin, titled "Wu Song beats Jiang the Door God in a drunken stupor", it mentions Wu Song, another of Zhou's fictional students, using the "Jade Circle-Steps with Duck and Drake feet". A famous folklore Praying Mantis manuscript, which describes the fictional gathering of eighteen martial arts masters in Shaolin, lists Lin Chong (#13) as a master of "Mandarin ducks kicking technique". This creates a folklore connection between Yue and Mantis boxing.
Lineage Mantis master Yuen Man Kai openly claims Zhou Tong taught Lin Chong and Lu Junyi the "same school" of martial arts that was later combined with the aforementioned seventeen other schools to create Mantis fist. However, he believes Mantis fist was created during the Ming dynasty, and was therefore influenced by these eighteen schools from the Song dynasty. He also says Lu Junyi taught Yan Qing the same martial arts as he learned from Zhou Tong. Yuen further comments that Zhou Tong later taught Yue Fei the same martial art and that Yue was the originator of the mantis move "Black Tiger Stealing Heart".
Poetry
At the age of 30, Yue supposedly wrote his most celebrated poem, "Man Jiang Hong" ("Entirely Red River") with a subtitle of "Xie Huai" ("Writing about What I Thought"). This poem reflects the raw hatred he felt towards the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty, as well as the sorrow he felt when his efforts to recoup northern lands lost to Jin were halted by Southern Song officials of the "Peace Faction". However, several modern historians, including the late Princeton University Prof. James T. C. Liu, believe certain phrasing in the poem dates its creation to the early 16th century, meaning Yue did not write it.
Yue Fei is also the author of at least two other poems, "Xiao Chong Shan" ("Small Hills") and another "Man Jiang Hong" with a subtitle of "Deng Huang He Lou You Gan" ("My Feelings When I Was Climbing the Yellow Crane Pavilion").
Descendants
Among Yue Fei's descendants was Yue Shenglong () and his son the Qing dynasty official Yue Zhongqi, who served as Minister of Defence and Governor-General of Shaanxi and Gansu provinces during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor. Yue Zhongqi conquered Tibet for the Qing during the Dzungar–Qing War and attacked the Dzungars at Ürümqi in Xinjiang. The Oirats were battled against by Yue Zhongqi. Yue Zhongqi lived at the Ji Xiaolan Residence.
Another notable descendant of Yue Fei was Yue Yiqin, a flying ace of the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
In 2011, two Yue descendants, Yue Jun and Yue Haijun, with six members of their clan, protested Jiangning Imperial Silk Manufacturing Museum's Qin Hui statue, which indicates that even after centuries, the Yue family still hates Qin Hui and his conspirators for their ancestor's plight. It has been reported that male members of the Yue family were not allowed to marry anyone whose surname was Qin until 1949, and genealogical records attest that this rule was rarely broken prior to its nullification. In 2017, it was reported that were 1.81 million descendants of Yue Fei in China, and the number of Yue Fei's descendants in Anhui alone has grown to more than 1,003,000.
Folk hero
Yue Fei's stature in Chinese history rose to that of a national folk hero after his execution. Qin Hui, and in some cases Emperor Gaozong, were blamed by later historians for their supposed role in Yue Fei's execution and conciliatory stance with the Jin dynasty. The allegations that Qin Hui conspired with the Jin to execute Yue Fei are popular in Chinese literature, but have never been proven. The real Yue Fei differed from the later myths that grew from his exploits. The portrayal of Yue as a scholar-general is only partially true. He was a skilled general, and may have been partially literate in Classical Chinese, but he was not an erudite Confucian scholar. Contrary to traditional legends, Yue was not the sole Chinese general engaged in the offensive against the Jurchens. He was one of many generals that fought against the Jin in northern China, and unlike Yue Fei, some of his peers were genuine members of the scholarly elite. Many of the exaggerations of Yue Fei's life can be traced to a biography written by his grandson, Yue Ke. Yue Fei's status as a folk hero strengthened in the Yuan dynasty and had a large impact on Chinese culture. Temples and shrines devoted to Yue Fei were constructed in the Ming dynasty. A Chinese World War II anthem alludes to lyrics said to have been written by Yue Fei.
He also sometimes appears as a door god in partnership with the deity Wen Taibao.
At certain points in time, Yue Fei ceased to be a national hero, such as in 2002, when the official guidelines for history teachers said that he could no longer carry the title. This was because Yue Fei had defended China from the Jurchen people, who are presently considered to be a part of the Chinese nation. Therefore, concern for the "unity of nationalities" in China prevailed, as Yue Fei was seen as representing only one subgroup within China, and not the "entire Chinese nation as presently defined". However, both the Chinese Ministry of Education and the Minister of Defence deny such claims and still clearly address Yue Fei as a national hero of China.隆重纪念民族英雄岳飞诞辰910周年 2013年03月21日人民日报海外版 The Chinese Communist Party also continues to treat Yue Fei as a national hero of China.
Modern references
The ROCS Yueh Fei (FFG-1106), a Cheng Kung-class guided-missile frigate of the Republic of China Navy, is named after Yue.
The author Guy Gavriel Kay cites Yue Fei as having inspired the character Ren Daiyan in his novel River of Stars (), which is set in a fantasy world based on Song Dynasty China.
Yue Fei is one of the 32 historical figures who appear as special characters in the video game Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI'' by Koei.
See also
Cultural depictions of Yue Fei
Yue Fei Temple
Tomb of Yue Fei
Han Shizhong
Zhang Jun
Wen Tianxiang
Lu Xiufu
Zhang Shijie
History of the Song dynasty
Jin–Song Wars
Timeline of the Jin–Song wars
Yuan Chonghuan
References
Citations
Sources
External links
"History of the Song" Chinese Wikipedia entry
470 volume version of the "History of the Song"
The Story of Yue Fei
"Yue Fei's Biography" from the History of the Song
"精忠报国 Utmost Loyalty to the Country", a famous Chinese song related to Yue Fei
1103 births
1142 deaths
12th-century Chinese calligraphers
12th-century Chinese poets
12th-century executions
Burials in Hangzhou
Chinese male archers
Executed military leaders
Executed people from Henan
Executed Song dynasty people
Generals from Henan
Jin–Song Wars
Marshals of China
People executed by the Song dynasty
Poets from Henan
Song dynasty calligraphers
Song dynasty generals
Song dynasty poets
Writers from Anyang
Deified Chinese people
War gods
Chinese deities
Chinese gods
Deities in Taoism
12th-century Chinese military personnel |
422315 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifted%20education | Gifted education | Gifted education (also known as gifted and talented education (GATE), talented and gifted programs (TAG), or G&T education) is a sort of education used for children who have been identified as gifted and talented.
The main approaches to gifted education are enrichment and acceleration. An enrichment program teaches additional, deeper material, but keeps the student progressing through the curriculum at the same rate as other students. For example, after the gifted students have completed the normal work in the curriculum, an enrichment program might provide them with additional information about a subject. An acceleration program advances the student through the standard curriculum faster than normal. This is normally done by having the students skip one to two grades.
Being gifted and talented usually means being able to score in the top percentile on IQ exams. The percentage of students selected varies, generally with 10% or fewer being selected for gifted education programs. However, for a child to have distinct gifted abilities it is to be expected to score in the top one percent of students.
Forms
Attempts to provide gifted education can be classified in several ways. Most gifted students benefit from a combination of approaches at different times.
Acceleration
People are advanced to a higher-level class covering material more suited to their abilities and preparedness. This may take the form of skipping grades or completing the normal curriculum in a shorter-than-normal period of time ("telescoping"). Subject acceleration (also called partial acceleration) is a flexible approach that can advance a student in one subject, such as mathematics or language, without changing other studies, such as history or science. This type of acceleration is usually based upon achievement testing, rather than IQ.
Some colleges offer early entrance programs that give gifted younger students the opportunity to attend college early. In the U.S., many community colleges allow advanced students to enroll with the consent of school officials and the pupil's parents.
Acceleration presents gifted children with academic material from established curricula that is commensurate with their ability and preparedness, and for this reason is a low-cost option from the perspective of the school. This may result in a small number of children taking classes targeted at older children. For the majority of gifted students, acceleration is beneficial both academically and socially. Whole grade skipping is considered rapid acceleration. Some advocates have argued that the disadvantages of being retained in a standard mixed-ability classroom are substantially worse than any shortcomings of acceleration. For example, psychologist Miraca Gross reports: "the majority of these children [retained in a typical classroom] are socially rejected [by their peers with typical academic talents], isolated, and deeply unhappy. Children of IQ 180+ who are retained in the regular classroom are even more seriously at risk and experience severe emotional distress." These accelerated children should be placed together in one class if possible. Research suggests that acceleration might have an impact long after students graduate from high school. For example, one study shows that high-IQ individuals who experienced full-grade acceleration earned higher incomes as adults.
Cluster grouping
Cluster grouping is the gathering of four to six gifted and talented and/or high achieving students in a single classroom for the entire school day. Cluster teachers are specially trained in differentiating for gifted learners. Clusters are typically used in upper elementary grades. Within a cluster group, instruction may include enrichment and extensions, higher-order thinking skills, pretesting and differentiation, compacting, an accelerated pace, and more complexity in content.
Colloquium
Like acceleration, colloquium provides advanced material for high school students. In colloquium, students take Advanced Placement (AP) courses. However, colloquium is different from AP classes because students are usually given more projects than students in AP classes. Students in colloquium also generally study topics more in depth and sometimes in a different way than students enrolled in AP classes do. Colloquium is a form that takes place in a traditional public school. In colloquium, subjects are grouped together. Subjects are taught at different times of the day; however, usually what is being taught in one subject will connect with another subject. For example, if the students are learning about colonial America in History, then they might also be analyzing text from The Scarlet Letter in English. Some schools may only have colloquium in certain subjects. In schools where colloquium is only offered in English and History, colloquium students usually take Advanced Placement courses in math and science and vice versa.
Compacting
In compacting, the regular school material is compacted by pretesting the student to establish which skills and content have already been mastered. Pretests can be presented on a daily basis (pupils doing the most difficult items on a worksheet first and skipping the rest if they are performed correctly), or before a week or longer unit of instructional time. When a student demonstrates an appropriate level of proficiency, further repetitive practice can be safely skipped, thus reducing boredom and freeing up time for the student to work on more challenging material.
Enrichment
On the primary school level, students spend all class time with their peers, but receive extra material to challenge them. Enrichment may be as simple as a modified assignment provided by the regular classroom teacher, or it might include formal programs such as Odyssey of the Mind, Destination Imagination or academic competitions such as Brain Bowl, Future Problem Solving, Science Olympiad, National History Day, science fairs, or spelling bees. Programmes of enrichment activities may also be organised outside the school day (e.g. the ASCEND project in secondary science education). This work is done in addition to, and not instead of, any regular school work assigned. Critics of this approach argue that it requires gifted students to do more work instead of the same amount at an advanced level. On the secondary school level sometimes an option is to take more courses such as English, Spanish, Latin, philosophy, or science or to engage in extracurricular activities. Some perceive there to be a necessary choice between enrichment and acceleration, as if the two were mutually exclusive alternatives. However, other researchers see the two as complements to each other.
Full-time separate classes or schools
Some gifted students are educated in either a separate class or a separate school. These classes and schools are sometimes called "congregated gifted programs" or "dedicated gifted programs."
Some independent schools have a primary mission to serve the needs of the academically gifted. Such schools are relatively scarce and often difficult for families to locate. One resource for locating gifted schools in the United States can be found on the National Association for Gifted Children's resource directory accessible through their home page. Such schools often need to work to guard their mission from occasional charges of elitism, support the professional growth and training of their staff, write curriculum units that are specifically designed to meet the social, emotional, and academic talents of their students, and educate their parent population at all ages.
Some gifted and talented classes offer self-directed or individualized studies, where the students lead a class themselves and decide on their own task, tests, and all other assignments. These separate classes or schools tend to be more expensive than regular classes, due to smaller class sizes and lower student-to-teacher rations. Not-for-profit (non-profit) schools often can offer lower costs than for-profit schools. Either way, they are in high demand and parents often have to pay part of the costs.
Hobby
Activities such as reading, creative writing, sport, computer games, chess, music, dance, foreign languages, and art give an extra intellectual challenge outside of school hours.
Homeschooling
An umbrella term encompassing a variety of educational activities conducted at home, including those for gifted children: part-time schooling; school at home; classes, groups, mentors and tutors; and unschooling. In many US states, the population of gifted students who are being homeschooled is rising quite rapidly, as school districts responding to budgetary issues and standards-based policies are cutting what limited gifted education programs remain in existence, and families seek educational opportunities that are tailored to each child's unique needs.
Pull-out
Gifted students are pulled out of a heterogeneous classroom to spend a portion of their time in a gifted class. These programs vary widely, from carefully designed half-day academic programs to a single hour each week of educational challenges. Generally, these programs are ineffective at promoting academic advancement unless the material covered contains extensions and enrichment to the core curriculum. The majority of pull-out programs include an assortment of critical thinking drills, creative exercises, and subjects typically not introduced in standard curricula. Much of the material introduced in gifted pull-out programs deals with the study of logic, and its application to fields ranging from philosophy to mathematics. Students are encouraged to apply these empirical reasoning skills to every aspect of their education both in and outside of class.
Self-pacing
Self-pacing methods, such as the Montessori Method, use flexible grouping practices to allow children to advance at their own pace. Self-pacing can be beneficial for all children and is not targeted specifically at those identified as gifted or talented, but it can allow children to learn at a highly accelerated rate. Directed Studies are usually based on self-pacing.
Summer enrichment
These offer a variety of courses that mainly take place in the summer. Summer schools are popular in the United States. Entrance fees are required for such programs, and programs typically focus on one subject, or class, for the duration of the camp.
Several examples of this type of program are:
Center for Talented Youth
CTYI
GERI: Gifted Education Resource Institute, Purdue University
Johns Hopkins University
Center for Talent Development, Northwestern University
Within the United States, in addition to programs designed by the state, some counties also choose to form their own Talented and Gifted Programs. Sometimes this means that an individual county will form its own TAG program; sometimes several counties will come together if not enough gifted students are present in a single county. Generally, a TAG program focuses on a specific age group, particularly the local TAG programs. This could mean elementary age, high school age, or by years such as ages 9 through 14.
These classes are generally organized so that students have the opportunity to choose several courses they wish to participate in. Courses offered often vary between subjects, but are not typically strictly academically related to that subject. For example, a TAG course that could be offered in history could be the students learning about a certain event and then acting it out in a performance to be presented to parents on the last night of the program. These courses are designed to challenge the students to think in new ways and not merely to be lectured as they are in school.
Identifying gifted children
The term "Gifted Assessment" is typically applied to a process of using norm-referenced psychometric tests administered by a qualified psychologist or psychometrist with the goal of identifying children whose intellectual functioning is significantly advanced as compared to the appropriate reference group (i.e., individuals of their age, gender, and country). The cut-off score for differentiating this group is usually determined by district school boards and can differ slightly from area to area, however, the majority defines this group as students scoring in the top 2 percentiles on one of the accepted tests of intellectual (cognitive) functioning or IQ. Some school boards also require a child to demonstrate advanced academic standing on individualized achievement tests and/or through their classroom performance. Identifying gifted children is often difficult but is very important because typical school teachers are not qualified to educate a gifted student. This can lead to a situation where a gifted child is bored, underachieves and misbehaves in class.
Individual IQ testing is usually the optimal method to identify giftedness among children. However it does not distinguish well among those found to be gifted. Therefore, examiners prefer using a variety of tests to first identify giftedness and then further differentiate. This is often done by using individual IQ tests and then group or individual achievement tests. There is no standard consensus on which tests to use, as each test is better suited for a certain role.
The two most popular tests for identifying giftedness in the school-age population are the WISC-IV and the SB5. The WIAT-III is considered the most popular academic achievement test to determine a child's aggregate learned knowledge.
Although a newer WISC version, the WISC-V, was developed in late 2014, the WISC-IV is still the most commonplace test. It has been translated into several languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, French, German, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Italian. The WISC-IV assesses a child's cognitive abilities, with respect to age group. Coupled with results from other tests, the WISC accurately depicts a child's developmental and psychological needs for the future.
The SB5 is an intelligence test that determines cognitive abilities and can be administered to persons in virtually any age group. It assesses a series of intelligence indicators including fluid reasoning, general knowledge, quantitative reasoning, spatial processing, and working memory. The SB5 makes use of both verbal and nonverbal testing.
The WIAT-III cannot assess all components of learned knowledge, but does give an understanding of a child's ability to acquire skills and knowledge through formal education. This test measures aspects of the learning process that take place in a traditional school setting in reading, writing, math, and oral language. Although the WIAT-III tests a wide range of material, it is designed primarily to assess children's learning before adolescence.
Versions of these tests exist for each age group. However it is recommended to begin assessment as early as possible, with approximately eight years of age being the optimal time to test. Testing allows identification of specific needs of students and help to plan an education early.
Out-of-group achievement testing (such as taking the SAT or ACT early) can also help to identify these students early on (see SMPY) and is implemented by various talent search programs in use by education programs. Out-of-group testing can also help to differentiate children who have scored in the highest percentiles in a single IQ test.
Testing alone cannot accurately identify every gifted child. Teacher and parent nominations are essential additions to the objective information provided by grades and scores. Parents are encouraged to keep portfolios of their children's work, and documentation of their early signs of gifted behavior.
Studies of giftedness
The development of early intelligence tests by Alfred Binet led to the Stanford-Binet IQ test developed by Lewis Terman. Terman began long-term studies of gifted children with a view to checking if the popular view "early ripe, early rot" was true. The Terman Genetic Studies of Genius longitudinal study has been described by successor researchers who conducted the study after Terman's death and also by an independent researcher who had full access to the study files.
Modern studies by James and Kulik conclude that gifted students benefit least from working in a mixed-level class, and benefit most from learning with other similarly advanced students in accelerated or enriched classes.
Definition of giftedness
Educational authorities differ on the definition of giftedness: even when using the same IQ test to define giftedness, they may disagree on what gifted means—one may take up the top two percent of the population, another might take up the top five percent of a population, which may be within a state, district, or school. Within a single school district, there can be substantial differences in the distribution of measured IQ. The IQ for the top percentile at a high-performing school may be quite different from that at a lower performing school.
Peter Marshall obtained his doctorate in 1995, for research carried out in this field in the years from 1986. At the time, he was the first Research Director of the Mensa Foundation for Gifted Children. His work challenged the difficult childhood hypothesis, concluding that gifted children, by and large, do not have any more difficult childhoods than mainstream children and, in fact, that where they do, their giftedness probably helps them cope better than mainstream children and provided the material for his subsequent book Educating a Gifted Child.
In Identifying Gifted Children: A Practical Guide, Susan K. Johnsen (2004) explains that gifted children all exhibit the potential for high performance in the areas included in the United States federal definition of gifted and talented students:
The National Association for Gifted Children in the United States defines giftedness as:
This definition has been adopted in part or completely by the majority of the states in the United States. Most have some definition similar to that used in the State of Texas, whose definition states:
The major characteristics of these definitions are (a) the diversity of areas in which performance may be exhibited (e.g., intellectual, creative, artistic, leadership, academic), (b) the comparison with other groups (e.g., those in general education classrooms or of the same age, experience, or environment), and (c) the use of terms that imply a need for development of the gift (e.g., capability and potential).
Reliance on IQ
In her book, Identifying Gifted Children: A Practical Guide, Susan K. Johnsen (2004) writes that schools should use a variety of measures of students' capability and potential when identifying gifted children. These measures may include portfolios of student work, classroom observations, achievement measures, and intelligence scores. Most educational professionals accept that no single measure can be used in isolation to accurately identify every gifted child.
Even if the notion of IQ is generally useful for identifying academically talented students who would benefit from further services, the question of the cutoff point for giftedness is still important. As noted above, different authorities often define giftedness differently.
History
Classical era to Renaissance
Gifted and talented education dates back thousands of years. Plato (c. 427–c. 347 BCE) advocated providing specialized education for intellectually gifted young men and women. In China's Tang dynasty (580–618 CE), child prodigies were summoned to the imperial court for specialized education. Throughout the Renaissance, those who exhibited creative talent in art, architecture, and literature were supported by both the government and private patronage.
Francis Galton
Francis Galton conducted one of the earliest Western studies of human intellectual abilities. Between 1888 and 1894, Galton tested more than 7,500 individuals to measure their natural intellectual abilities. He found that if a parent deviates from the norm, so will the child, but to a lesser extent than the parent. This was one of the earliest observed examples of regression toward the mean. Galton believed that individuals could be improved through interventions in heredity, a movement he named eugenics. He categorized individuals as gifted, capable, average, or degenerate, and he recommended breeding between the first two categories, and forced abstinence for the latter two. His term for the most intelligent and talented people was "eminent". After studying England's most prominent families, Galton concluded that one's eminence was directly related to the individual's direct line of heredity.
Lewis Terman
At Stanford University in 1918, Lewis Terman adapted Alfred Binet's Binet-Simon intelligence test into the Stanford-Binet test, and introduced intelligence quotient (IQ) scoring for the test. According to Terman, the IQ was one's mental age compared to one's chronological age, based on the mental age norms he compiled after studying a sample of children. He defined intelligence as "the ability to carry on abstract thinking". During World War I Terman was a commissioned officer of the United States Army, and collaborated with other psychologists in developing intelligence tests for new recruits to the armed forces. For the first time, intelligence testing was given to a wide population of drafted soldiers.
After the war, Terman undertook an extensive longitudinal study of 643 children in California who scored at IQ 140 or above, the Genetic Studies of Genius, continuing to evaluate them throughout their lives. Subjects of these case studies were called "Termites" and the studies contacted the children in 1921, and again in 1930, 1947, and 1959 after his death. Terman's studies have to date been the most extensive on high-functioning children, and are still quoted in psychological literature today. Terman claimed to have disproven common misconceptions, such as that highly intelligent children were prone to ill physical and mental health, that their intelligence burned out early in their lives, or that they either achieved greatly or underachieved.
Leta Hollingworth
A professional colleague of Terman's, Leta Hollingworth was the first in the United States to study how best to serve students who showed evidence of high performance on tests. Although recognizing Terman's and Galton's beliefs that heredity played a vital role in intelligence, Hollingworth gave similar credit to home environment and school structure. Hollingworth worked to dispel the pervasive belief that "bright children take care of themselves" and emphasized the importance of early identification, daily contact, and grouping gifted children with others with similar abilities. Hollingworth performed an 18-year-long study of 50 children in New York City who scored 155 or above on the Stanford-Binet, and studied smaller groups of children who scored above a 180. She also ran a school in New York City for bright students that employed a curriculum of student-led exploration, as opposed to a teacher providing students with a more advanced curriculum they would encounter later in life.
Cold War
One unforeseen result of the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union was the immediate emphasis on education for bright students in the United States, and this settled the question whether the federal government should get involved in public education at all. The National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was passed by Congress in 1958 with $1 billion US to bolster science, math, and technology in public education. Educators immediately pushed to identify gifted students and serve them in schools. Students chosen for gifted services were given intelligence tests with a strict cutoff, usually at 130, which meant that students who scored below 130 were not identified.
Marland Report
The impact of the NDEA was evident in schools for years after, but a study on how effective education was meeting the needs of gifted students was initiated by the United States Department of Education in 1969. The Marland Report, completed in 1972, for the first time presented a general definition of giftedness, and urged districts to adopt it. The report also allowed students to show high functioning on talents and skills not measurable by an intelligence test. The Marland Report defined gifted as
The report's definition continues to be the basis of the definition of giftedness in most districts and states.
A Nation at Risk
In 1983, the result of an 18-month-long study of secondary students was published as A Nation at Risk, and claimed that students in the United States were no longer receiving superior education, and in fact, could not compete with students from other developed countries in many academic exercises. One of the recommendations the book made was to increase services to gifted education programs, citing curriculum enrichment or acceleration specifically. The US federal government was also urged to create standards for the identification and servicing of gifted students.
Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act
The Jacob Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act was passed in 1988 as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Instead of funding district-level gifted education programs, the Javits Act instead has three primary components: the research of effective methods of testing, identification, and programming, which is performed at the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented; the awarding of grants to colleges, states, and districts that focus on underrepresented populations of gifted students; and grants awarded to state and districts for program implementation.
Annual funding for grants must be passed by US Congress, and totaled $9.6 million US in 2007, but the money is not promised. While he was president, George W. Bush eliminated the money every year of his term, but members of Congress overrode the president to make sure the grant money was distributed.
No Child Left Behind
The most recent US federal education initiative was signed into law in 2002. The goal of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is to bring the proficiency of all students to grade level but critics note it does not address the needs of gifted students who perform above grade level. The act imposes punishments on schools, administrators, and teachers when students do not achieve to the plan's designs, but does not address any achievement standards for high-functioning students, forcing schools and teachers to spend their time with low-achieving students. An article in The Washington Post declared, "The unmistakable message to teachers – and to students – is that it makes no difference whether a child barely meets the proficiency standard or far exceeds it." Gifted services have been recently eroding as a result of the new legislation, according to a 2006 article in The New York Times.
A Nation Deceived
In 2004, the John Templeton Foundation sponsored a report titled A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students, highlighting the disparity between the research on acceleration (which generally supports it, both from an academic and a psychological point of view), and the educational practices in the US that are often contrary to the conclusions of that research. The Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration (IRPA) was established in 2006 at The Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development at the University of Iowa College of Education through the support of the John Templeton Foundation following the publication of this report.
Global implementation
Australia
Public gifted education in Australia varies significantly from state to state. New South Wales has 95 primary schools with opportunity classes catering to students in year 5 and 6. New South Wales also has 17 fully selective secondary schools and 25 partially selective secondary schools. Western Australia has selective programs in 17 high schools, including Perth Modern School, a fully selective school. Queensland has three Queensland Academies catering to students in years 10, 11 and 12. South Australia has programs in three public high schools catering to students in years 8, 9 and 10, including Glenunga International High School. The Victorian Government commissioned a parliamentary inquiry into the education of gifted and talented children in 2012. One recommendation from the inquiry was for the Victorian Government to list the schools with programs, but the government has not implemented this recommendation. Some private schools have developed programs for gifted children.
Brazil
The Centre for Talent and Potential Development (CEDET) is a special education center created by Zenita Guenther in Lavras, MG, Brazil, in 1993. CEDET is run by the Lavras School System with technical and civil responsibility delegated to the Association of Parents and Friends for Supporting Talent (ASPAT). Its main goal is to cultivate the proper physical and social environment for complementing and supplementing educational support to the gifted and talented student. At present, there are 512 gifted students age 7 to 17 enrolled at CEDET, around 5% of Lavras Basic School population. The students come from thirteen municipal schools, eight state schools and two private schools, plus a group of students from nearby communities brought in by their families.
Canada
In Alberta, the Calgary Board of Education (CBE) has various elementary, middle and high schools offering the GATE Program, standing for Gifted and Talented Education, for grades 4–12, or divisions 2–4. The program for students, who, through an IQ test, ranked in the Very Superior Range; falling into Gifted or Genius. For each of the three divisions, there are two schools offering GATE, one for the north side of the city (CBE areas I, II and III) and one for the south side (CBE areas IV and V). For Division 2, or grades 4–6, it is available at Hillhurst Elementary School for the North and Nellie McClung Elementary School for the South. For Division 3, or grades 7–9, it is available at Queen Elizabeth High School for the north and John Ware Junior High School for the south. For Division 3, or grades 10–12, Queen Elizabeth High School, a joint junior high–senior high, offers it for the north and Henry Wise Wood Senior High School offers it for the south. GATE classes go more in-depth and cover some curriculum for the following grade level, with tougher assignments and a faster learning pace. Students benefit from being around other students like them. These students attend the school alongside regular students and those in other programs (e.g. International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement.) In the 2014–2015 school year, students from grades 4–7 in the south will be attending Louis Riel Junior High School, already home to a science program, and students in the regular program there will be moved to Nellie McClung and John Ware. Students at John Ware will be phased out: eighth grade GATE will end in June 2015, and ninth grade GATE will end in 2016, while GATE will be expanding to grade 9 at Louis Riel by September 2016. Prior to John Ware, the GATE program was housed at Elboya. A large number of teachers from Nellie McClung and John Ware will be moving to the new location, which was picked to deal with student population issues and to concentrate resources. Notable alumni of the CBE GATE Program include the 36th mayor of Calgary, Naheed Nenshi, from Queen Elizabeth High School.
Westmount Charter School in Calgary is a K–12 charter school specifically dedicated to gifted education.
In British Columbia, the Vancouver Board of Education's gifted program is called Multi-Age Cluster Class or MACC. This is a full-time program for highly gifted elementary students from grades 4 to 7. Through project-based learning, students are challenged to use higher order thinking skills. Another focus of the program is autonomous learning; students are encouraged to self-monitor, self-reflect and seek out enrichment opportunities. Entrance to the program is initiated through referral followed by a review by a screening committee. IQ tests are used but not exclusively. Students are also assessed by performance, cognitive ability tests, and motivation. There are four MACCs in Vancouver: grade 4/5 and grade 6/7 at Sir William Osler Elementary, grade 5/6/7 at Tecumseh Elementary, and a French-immersion grade 5/6/7 at Kerrisdale Elementary.
At a lower scale, in Ontario, the Peel District School Board operates its Regional Enhanced Program at The Woodlands School, Lorne Park Secondary School, Glenforest Secondary School, Heart Lake Secondary School and Humberview Secondary School to provide students an opportunity to develop and explore skills in a particular area of interest. Students identified as gifted (which the PDSB classifies as "enhanced") may choose to attend the nearest of these high schools instead of their assigned home high school. In the Regional Enhanced Program, enhanced students take core courses (primarily, but not limited to English, mathematics, and the sciences) in an environment surrounded by fellow enhanced peers. The classes often contain modified assignments that encourage students to be creative.
Hong Kong
Definition of giftedness
The Education Commission Report No. 4 issued in 1990 recommended a policy on gifted education for schools in Hong Kong and suggested that a broad definition of giftedness using multiple criteria should be adopted.
Gifted children generally have exceptional achievement or potential in one or more of the following domains:
a high level of measured intelligence;
specific academic aptitude in a subject area;
creative thinking;
superior talent in visual and performing arts;
natural leadership of peers; and
psychomotor ability – outstanding performance or ingenuity in athletics, mechanical skills or other areas requiring gross or fine motor coordination;
The multi-dimensional aspect of intelligence has been promoted by Professor Howard Gardner from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in his theory of multiple intelligences. In his introduction to the tenth anniversary edition of his classic work Frames of Mind, he says:
In the heyday of the psychometric and behaviorist eras, it was generally believed that intelligence was a single entity that was inherited; and that human beings – initially a blank slate – could be trained to learn anything, provided that it was presented in an appropriate way. Nowadays an increasing number of researchers believe precisely the opposite; that there exists a multitude of intelligences, quite independent of each other; that each intelligence has its own strengths and constraints; that the mind is far from unencumbered at birth; and that it is unexpectedly difficult to teach things that go against early 'naive' theories of that challenge the natural lines of force within an intelligence and its matching domains. (Gardner 1993: xxiii)
Howard Gardner initially formulated a list of seven intelligences, but later added an eighth, that are intrinsic to the human mind: linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, musical, bodily kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and naturalist intelligences.
It has become widely accepted at both local and international scales to adopt a broad definition of giftedness using multiple criteria to formulate gifted education policy.
Mission and principles
The mission of gifted education is to systematically and strategically explore and develop the potential of gifted students. Gifted learners are to be provided with opportunities to receive education at appropriate levels in a flexible teaching and learning environment.
The guiding principles for gifted education in Hong Kong are:
Nurturing multiple intelligences as a requirement of basic education for all students and an essential part of the mission for all schools
The needs of gifted children are best met within their own schools though it is recognized that opportunities to learn with similarly gifted students are important. Schools have an obligation to provide stimulating and challenging learning opportunities for their students
The identification of gifted students should recognize the breadth of multiple intelligences
Schools should ensure that the social and emotional, as well as the intellectual, needs of gifted children are recognized and met.
Framework
Based on these guiding principles, a three-tier gifted education framework was adopted in 2000. Levels 1 & 2 are recognised as being school-based whilst Level 3 is the responsibility of the HKAGE. The intention is that Level 1 serves the entire school population, irrespective of ability, that Level 2 deals with between 2–10% of the ability group, and that Level 3 caters for the top 2% of students.
Level 1:
A. To immerse the core elements advocated in gifted education i.e. High-order thinking skills, creativity and personal-social competence in the curriculum for ALL students;
B. To differentiate teaching through appropriate grouping of students to meet the different needs of the groups with enrichment and extension of curriculum across ALL subjects in regular classrooms.
Level 2:
C. To conduct pull-out programmes of generic nature outside the regular classroom to allow systematic training for a homogeneous group of students (e.g. Creativity training, leadership training, etc.);
D. To conduct pull-out programme in specific areas (e.g. Maths, Arts, etc.) outside the regular classroom to allow systematic training for students with outstanding performance in specific domains.
Level 3:
E. Tertiary institutions and other educational organizations / bodies, such as the Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education and other universities in Hong Kong to provide a wide and increasing range of programmes for gifted students
India
In India, Jnana Prabodhini Prashala started in 1968, is probably the first school for gifted education. The motto is "motivating intelligence for social change." The school, located in central Pune, admits 80 students each year after thorough testing, which includes two written papers and an interview. The psychology department of Jnana Prabodhini has worked on J. P. Guilford's model of intelligence.
Iran
National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (NODET), also known as SAMPAD (, which stands for in Persian), are national middle and high schools in Iran developed specifically for the development of exceptionally talented students in Iran. NODET was first established in 1976 and re-established in 1987.
Admission to NODET schools is selective and based on a comprehensive nationwide entrance examination procedure.
Every year thousands of students apply to enter the schools, from which less than 5% are chosen for the 99 middle schools and 98 high schools within the country. All applicants must have a minimum GPA of 19 (out of 20) for attending the entrance exam. In 2006, 87,081 boys and 83,596 girls from 56 cities applied, and 6,888 students were accepted for the 2007 middle school classes. The admission process is much more selective in big cities like Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad and Karaj in which less than 150 students are accepted after two exams and interviews, out of over 50,000 applicants.
The top NODET (and Iranian) schools are Allameh Helli High School and Shahid Madani High School (in Tabriz), Farzanegan High School located in Tehran, Shahid Ejei High School located in Isfahan, Shahid Hashemi Nejad High School located in Mashhad and Shahid Soltani School located in Karaj. Courses taught in NODET schools are college-level in fields such as biology, chemistry, mathematics, physics and English. The best teachers from the ministry of education are chosen mainly by the school's principal and faculty to teach at NODET schools. Schools mainly have only two majors (normal schools have three majors), math/physics and experimental sciences (like math/physics but with biology as the primary course). Even though social sciences are taught, there is much less emphasis on these subjects due to the lack of interest by both students and the organization.
Norway
Norway has no centre for gifted or talented children or youth. However, there is the privately run Barratt Due Institute of Music which offers musical kindergarten, evening school and college for highly talented young musicians. There is also the public secondary school for talents in ballet at Ruseløkka school in Oslo, which admits the top 15 dancers. In athletics, the privately run Norwegian Elite Sports Gymnasium (NTG) offers secondary school for talents in five locations in Norway. This account might not be complete.
Republic of Ireland
The Centre for the Talented Youth of Ireland has run in Dublin City University since 1992.
South Korea
Following the Gifted Education Promotion Law () in the year 2000, the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology (MEST) founded the National Research Center for Gifted and Talented Education (NRCGTE) in 2002 to ensure effective implementation of gifted education research, development, and policy. The center is managed by the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI). Presently twenty-five universities conduct gifted and talented education research in some form; for example, Seoul National University is conducting Science-gifted Education Center, and KAIST is conducting Global Institute For Talented Education (GIFTED), the Korean Society for the Gifted and Talented () and the Korean Society for the Gifted ().
Education for the scientifically gifted in Korea can be traced back to the 1983 government founding of Gyeonggi Science High School. Following three later additions (Korea Science Academy of KAIST, Seoul Science High School and Daegu Science High School), approximately 1,500, or 1 in 1,300 (0.08 percent) of high school students are currently enrolled among its four gifted academies. By 2008, about 50,000, or 1 in 140 (0.7 percent) of elementary and middle school students participated in education for the gifted. In 2005, a program was undertaken to identify and educate gifted children of socioeconomically underprivileged people. Since then, more than 1,800 students have enrolled in the program.
Gradually, the focus has expanded over time to cover informatics, arts, physical education, creative writing, humanities, and social sciences, leading to the 2008 creation of the government-funded Korean National Institute for the Gifted Arts. To pluralize the need for trained professional educators, teachers undergo basic training (60 hours), advanced training (120 hours), and overseas training (60 hours) to acquire skills necessary to teach gifted youth.
Singapore
In Singapore, the Gifted Education Programme (GEP) was introduced in 1984 and is offered in the upper primary years (Primary 4–6, ages 10–12). Pupils undergo rigorous testing in Primary 3 (age 9) for admission into the GEP for Primary 4 to 6. About 1% of the year's cohort are admitted into the programme. The GEP is offered at selected schools, meaning that these pupils attend school alongside their peers in the mainstream curriculum but attend separate classes for certain subjects. As of the 2016 academic year, there are nine primary schools which offer the GEP.
Slovakia
The School for Gifted Children in Bratislava was established in 1998. It offers education known as APROGEN—Alternative Program for Gifted Education.
Turkey
The UYEP Research and Practice Center offers enriched programs for gifted students at Anadolu University. The center was founded by Ugur Sak in 2007. ANABILIM Schools have special classrooms for gifted and talented students. These schools apply the differentiated curriculum in the sciences, mathematics, language arts, social studies, and the arts for K8 gifted and talented students and enriched science and project-based learning in high school. There are over 200 science and art centers operated by the Ministry of Education that offer special education for gifted and talented students throughout the country. The Ministry uses the Anadolu Sak Intelligence Scale (ASIS) and the Wechsler Scales to select students for these centers. Four universities offer graduate programs in gifted education.
United Kingdom
In England, schools are expected to identify 5–10% of students who are gifted and/or talented in relation to the rest of the cohort in that school—an approach that is pragmatic (concerned with ensuring schools put in place some provision for their most able learners) rather than principled (in terms of how to best understand giftedness). The term gifted applies to traditional academic subjects, and talented is used in relation to high levels of attainment in the creative arts and sports. The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth ran from 2002 to 2007 at the University of Warwick. Warwick University decided not to reapply for the contract to run NAGTY in 2007, instead introducing its own programme, the International Gateway for Gifted Youth in 2008. In January 2010, the government announced that NAGTY was to be scrapped the following month.
United States
In the United States, each state department of education determines if the needs of gifted students will be addressed as a mandatory function of public education. If so, the state determines the definition of which students will be identified and receive services, but may or may not determine how they shall receive services. If a state does not consider gifted education mandatory, individual districts may, thus the definition of what gifted is varies from state or district.
In contrast with special education, gifted education is not regulated on a federal level, although recommendations by the US Department of Education are offered. As such, funding for services is not consistent from state to state, and although students may be identified, the extent to which they receive services can vary widely depending upon a state or district's budget.
Although schools with higher enrollment of minority or low-income students are just as likely to offer gifted programs as other schools, differing enrollment rates across racial and ethnic groups has raised concerns about equity in gifted education in the U.S.
Gifted education programs are also offered at various private schools. For example, the Mirman School caters to children with an IQ of 138 and above and Prep for Prep is focused on students of color.
Commonly used terms
Source: National Association for Gifted Children—Frequently Used Terms in Gifted Education
Affective curriculum: A curriculum that is designed to teach gifted students about emotions, self-esteem, and social skills. This can be valuable for all students, especially those who have been grouped with much older students, or who have been rejected by their same-age, but academically typical, peers.
Differentiation: modification of a gifted student's curriculum to accommodate their specific needs. This may include changing the content or ability level of the material.
Heterogeneous grouping: a strategy that groups students of varied ability, preparedness, or accomplishment in a single classroom environment. Usually this terminology is applied to groupings of students in a particular grade, especially in elementary school. For example, students in fifth grade would be heterogeneously grouped in math if they were randomly assigned to classes instead of being grouped by demonstrated subject mastery. Heterogeneous grouping is sometimes claimed to provide a more effective instructional environment for less prepared students.
Homogeneous grouping: a strategy that groups students by specific ability, preparedness, or interest within a subject area. Usually this terminology is applied to groupings of students in a particular grade, especially in elementary school. For example, students in fifth grade would be homogeneously grouped in math if they were assigned to classes based on demonstrated subject mastery rather than being randomly assigned. Homogeneous grouping can provide more effective instruction for the most prepared students.
Individualized Education Program (IEP): a written document that addresses a student's specific individual needs. It may specify accommodations, materials, or classroom instruction. IEPs are often created for students with disabilities, who are required by law to have an IEP when appropriate. Most states are not required to have IEPs for students who are only identified as gifted. Some students may be intellectually gifted in addition to having learning and/or attentional disabilities, and may have an IEP that includes, for instance, enrichment activities as a means of alleviating boredom or frustration, or as a reward for on-task behavior. In order to warrant such an IEP, a student needs to be diagnosed with a separate emotional or learning disability that is not simply the result of being unchallenged in a typical classroom. These are also known as Individual Program Plans, or IPPs.
Justification
Researchers and practitioners in gifted education contend that, if education were to follow the medical maxim of "first, do no harm," then no further justification would be required for providing resources for gifted education as they believe gifted children to be at-risk. The notion that gifted children are "at-risk" was publicly declared in the Marland Report in 1972:
Three decades later, a similar statement was made by researchers in the field:
Controversies
Controversies concerning gifted education are varied and often highly politicized. They are as basic as agreeing upon the appropriateness of the term gifted or the definition of giftedness. For example, does giftedness refer to performance or potential (such as inherent intelligence)? Many students do not exhibit both at the same time.
Measures of general intelligence also remain controversial. Early IQ tests were notorious for producing higher IQ scores for privileged races and classes and lower scores for disadvantaged subgroups. Although IQ tests have changed substantially over the past half century, and many objections to the early tests have been addressed by 'culture-neutral' tests (such as the Raven test), IQ testing remains controversial. Regardless of the tests used to identify children for gifted programs, many school districts in the United States still have disproportionately more White and Asian American students enrolled in their gifted programs, while Hispanic and African American students are usually underrepresented. However, research shows that this may be not be a fault of tests, but rather a result of the achievement gap in the United States.
Some schools and districts only accept IQ tests as evidence of giftedness. This brings scrutiny to the fact that many affluent families can afford to consult with an educational psychologist to test their children, whereas families with a limited income cannot afford the test and must depend on district resources.
Appropriateness of forms of gifted education
This is the most hotly debated aspect of gifted education. Some people believe that gifted education resources lack availability and flexibility. They feel that in the alternative methods of gifted education, the gifted students "miss out" on having a "normal" childhood, at least insofar as "normal childhood" is defined as attending school in a mixed-ability classroom. Others believe that gifted education allows gifted students to interact with peers that are on their level, be adequately challenged, and leaves them better equipped to take on the challenges of life.
Another facet of this controversy is the effectiveness of the programs dependent upon resources that are pushed more toward students who are struggling. Gifted education is not mandated in many states, making it elective for districts to earmark money for. Many lower-achieving districts and schools must make crisis decisions on programs that are not high priorities. As a result, gifted students at these schools are not served, or not served effectively.
Class and ethnicity
Gifted programs are often seen as being elitist in places where the majority of students receiving gifted services are from a privileged background. Identifying and serving gifted children from poverty presents unique challenges, ranging from emotional issues arising from a family's economic insecurity, to gaps in pre-school cognitive development due to the family's lack of education and time.
In New York City, experience has shown that basing admission to gifted and talented programs on tests of any sort can result in selection of substantially more middle-class and white or Asian students and development of more programs in schools that such students attend.
Emotional aspects
While giftedness is seen as an academic advantage, psychologically it can pose other challenges for the gifted individual. A person who is intellectually advanced may or may not be advanced in other areas. Each individual student needs to be evaluated for physical, social, and emotional skills without the traditional prejudices which prescribe either "compensatory" weaknesses or "matching" advancement in these areas.
It is a common misconception that gifted students are universally gifted in all areas of academics, and these misconceptions can have a variety of negative emotional effects on a gifted child. Unrealistically high expectations of academic success are often placed on gifted students by both parents and teachers. This pressure can cause gifted students to experience high levels of anxiety, to become perfectionists, and to develop a fear of failure. Gifted students come to define themselves and their identity through their giftedness, which can be problematic as their entire self-concept can be shaken when they do not live up to the unrealistically high expectations of others.
A person with significant academic talents often finds it difficult to fit in with schoolmates. These pressures often wane during adulthood, but they can leave a significant negative impact on emotional development.
Social pressures can cause children to "play down" their intelligence in an effort to blend in with other students. "Playing down" is a strategy often used by students with clinical depression and is seen somewhat more frequently in socially acute adolescents. This behavior is usually discouraged by educators when they recognize it. Unfortunately, the very educators who want these children to challenge themselves and to embrace their gifts and talents are often the same people who are forced to discourage them in a mixed-ability classroom, through mechanisms like refusing to call on the talented student in class so that typical students have an opportunity to participate.
Students who are young, enthusiastic or aggressive are more likely to attract attention and to disrupt the class by working ahead, giving the correct answers all the time, asking for new assignments, or finding creative ways to entertain themselves while the rest of the class finishes an assignment. This behavior can be mistaken for ADHD.
Many parents of gifted find that it is the social-emotional aspect of their children's lives that needs support. Schools and talent development programs often focus on academic enrichment rather than providing time for gifted children to have the social interaction with true peers that is required for healthy development. National organizations such as Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG) as well as local organizations, have emerged in an effort to meet these needs.
It can also happen that some unidentified gifted students will get bored in regular class, daydream and lose track of where the class is in a lecture, and the teacher becomes convinced that the student is slow and struggling with the material.
Finally, gifted and talented students are statistically somewhat more likely to be diagnosed with a mental disorder such as bipolar disorder and to become addicted to drugs or alcohol. Gifted and talented students also have a higher chance of co-occurring learning disability. Gifted students with learning disabilities are often called twice exceptional. These students can require special attention in school.
Gender
Another area of controversy has been the marginalization of gifted females. Studies have attributed this to self-efficacy, acculturation and biological differences in aptitude between boys and girls for advanced mathematics.
Test preparation
In the United States, particularly in New York City where qualifying children as young as four are enrolled in enriched kindergarten classes offered by the public schools, a test preparation industry has grown up which closely monitors the nature of tests given to prospective students of gifted and talented programs. This can result in admission of significant numbers of students into programs who lack superior natural intellectual talent and exclusion of naturally talented students who did not participate in test preparation or lacked the resources to do so.
It is virtually impossible to train a child for a WISC test or other gifted test. Some websites are known for publishing test questions and answers, although using these is considered illegal since it is highly confidential information. It would also be disastrous if a non-gifted student was placed in a gifted program. Reviewing actual test questions can confuse children and stifles their natural thinking process, however reviewing similar style questions is a possibility.
Private gifted assessment is usually expensive and educators recommend that parents take advantage of online screening tests to give a preliminary indication of potential giftedness. Another way to screen for giftedness before requesting a psychological assessment is to do a curriculum-based assessment. Curriculum-based assessment is a form of achievement testing that focuses specifically on what the child has been exposed to in their academic career. It can be done through school or a private educational center. Although this can determine if a child's performance in school potentially signifies giftedness, there are complications. For example, if a child changes school districts or country of residence, the different terminology of curriculum could hold that child back. Secondly, discrepancies between school districts, along with public and private education, create a very wide range of potential knowledge bases.
Scholarly journals
Advance Academics
Gifted Child Quarterly
Gifted Education International
Gifted and Talented International
High Ability Studies
Journal for the Education of the Gifted
Roeper Review
See also
List of gifted and talented programmes
Academic elitism
Special education
Rationale for gifted programs
Selective schools
Discrimination of excellence
Notes
Further reading
The latest research about gifted education can be found in the academic journals that specialize in gifted education: Gifted Child Quarterly, Journal of Advanced Academics, Journal for the Education of the Gifted, Roeper Review.
Assouline, S., and A. Lupkowski-Shoplik (2005). Developing Math Talent: A Guide for Educating Gifted And Advanced Learners in Math. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press .
Broecher, J. (2005). Hochintelligente kreativ begaben. LIT-Verlag Muenster, Hamburg 2005 (Application of the High/Scope Approach and Renzulli's Enrichment Triad Model to a German Summer Camp for the Gifted)
Davidson, Jan and Bob, with Vanderkam, Laura (2004). Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Davis, G., and S. Rimm (1989). Education of the Gifted and Talented (2nd edn). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hansen, J., and S. Hoover (1994). Talent Development: Theories and Practice. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.
Johnsen, S. (1999, November/ December). "The top 10 events in gifted education". Gifted Child Today, 22(6), 7.
Newland, T. (1976). The Gifted in Historical Perspective. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Piirto, J. (1999). Talented Adults and Children: Their Development and Education (3rd edn). Waco, TX,: Prufrock Press.
Rogers, Karen B. (2002). Re-forming Gifted Education: How Parents and Teachers Can Match the Program to the Child. Scottsdale, AZ: Great Potential Press.
Winebrenner, Susan. (2001). Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit Publishing.
Lib Ed, UK-based online formerly paper) magazine opposed to authoritarian schooling: article "High Learning Potential" (2013).
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement. (1993). National Excellence: A case for developing America's talent. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
External links
Hoagies' Gifted Education Page
The Relationship of Grouping Practices to the Education of the Gifted and Talented Learner.
Myths About Gifted Students
"Raising an Accidental Prodigy from The Wall Street Journal on choices parents of gifted children make about their education
Alternative education
School terminology |
422323 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelred%2C%20Lord%20of%20the%20Mercians | Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians | Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians (or Ealdorman Æthelred of Mercia; died 911) became ruler of English Mercia shortly after the death or disappearance of its last king, Ceolwulf II in 879. Æthelred's rule was confined to the western half, as eastern Mercia was then part of the Viking-ruled Danelaw. His ancestry is unknown. He was probably the leader of an unsuccessful Mercian invasion of Wales in 881, and soon afterwards he acknowledged the lordship of King Alfred the Great of Wessex. This alliance was cemented by the marriage of Æthelred to Alfred's daughter Æthelflæd.
In 886, Alfred took possession of London, which had suffered greatly from several Viking occupations. Alfred then handed London over to Æthelred, as it had traditionally been a Mercian town. In 892, the Vikings renewed their attacks, and the following year, Æthelred led an army of Mercians, West Saxons and Welsh to victory over a Viking army at the Battle of Buttington. He spent the next three years fighting them alongside Alfred's son, the future King Edward the Elder. At some time after 899 Æthelred's health may have declined, and Æthelflæd may have become the effective ruler of Mercia.
After Æthelred's death, Æthelflæd ruled as Lady of the Mercians until her own death in 918. The couple's only child, a daughter called Ælfwynn, then ruled briefly until deposed by her uncle, King Edward.
Background
Mercia was the dominant kingdom in southern England in the eighth century, and maintained its position until it suffered a decisive defeat by King Ecgberht of Wessex at the Battle of Ellendun in 825. Ecgberht briefly conquered Mercia, but it recovered its independence in 830, and thereafter the two kingdoms became allies, which was to be an important factor in English resistance to the Vikings. The Mercians traditionally held overlordship over Wales, and in 853, King Burgred of Mercia obtained the assistance of King Æthelwulf of Wessex in an invasion of Wales in order to reassert their hegemony. The same year, Burgred married Æthelwulf's daughter.
In 865, the Viking Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia, and used it as a starting point for an invasion. The East Anglians were forced to buy peace, and the following year, the Vikings invaded Northumbria, where they established an obscure Northumbrian man called Ecgberht as puppet king in 867. They then moved on to Nottingham in Mercia, where they spent the winter of 867–868. Burgred was joined by King Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, the future King Alfred, for a combined attack on the Vikings, but they refused an engagement and in the end the Mercians bought peace with them. The following year, the Vikings conquered East Anglia. They returned to Mercia in 872; two years later they expelled Burgred, and Ceolwulf became king with their support. Ceolwulf was described by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as "a foolish king's thegn" who was a puppet of the Vikings, but historians regard this view as partial and distorted: he was accepted as a true king by the Mercians and by King Alfred.
In 877, the Vikings divided Mercia, taking the eastern part for themselves and leaving Ceolwulf with the west. The Vikings went on to attack Wessex, leaving Ceolwulf free to renew Mercian claims of hegemony in Wales. At almost the same time as Alfred's victory over the Vikings in 878 at the Battle of Edington, Ceolwulf defeated and killed Rhodri Mawr, king of the north Welsh territory of Gwynedd. After Ceolwulf's disappearance in 879, Mercia began to fall under the hegemony of Wessex.
Life
Early rule
Æthelred's descent is unknown, and he does not appear to have been closely related to his immediate predecessors, although his name suggests possible descent from earlier Mercian kings. He may have been the man of the same name who attested two Mercian charters in the late 860s, but he is not listed in the two surviving charters of Ceolwulf. Lists of witnesses to charters show that Æthelred's witan (council) shared bishops and at least two ealdormen with Ceolwulf, but Ceolwulf's thegns all disappeared. In the view of Ian Walker: "He was a royal ealdorman whose power base lay in the south-west of Mercia in the former kingdom of the Hwicce around Gloucester." However, Alex Woolf suggests that he was probably the son of King Burgred of Mercia and Æthelswith, sister of Alfred the Great, although that would mean that Æthelred's marriage was uncanonical, as Rome then forbade marriage between first cousins.
It is not known when Æthelred took over following Ceolwulf's death or disappearance, but in the view of Thomas Charles-Edwards, a historian of medieval Wales, Æthelred was almost certainly "Edryd Long-Hair", the leader of a Mercian army which invaded Gwynedd in 881, and was defeated by Rhodri Mawr's sons at the Battle of the Conwy. This was described by Welsh annals as "revenge by God for Rhodri". The defeat forced Æthelred to abandon his ambitions in north Wales, but he continued to exercise overlordship over the south-eastern Welsh kingdoms of Glywysing and Gwent. According to Alfred's Welsh biographer Asser, Æthelred's "might and tyrannical behaviour" forced these kingdoms to submit to the protection of King Alfred's lordship. By 883, Æthelred had accepted Alfred's lordship. Charles-Edwards suggests that in 881–882 he tried to maintain his dominance in south-east Wales, but Alfred offered his protection to Glywysing and Gwent, and in 882–883, Æthelred accepted that West Saxon power made continued independence impossible. Charles-Edwards comments:
The implication of all this is that the Mercian submission to Alfred – a crucial step in the creation of a single English kingdom – occurred not just because of one battle, Alfred's victory over the Great Army at Edington in 878, but also because of another, more distant battle, "God's revenge" on the Mercians at the Conwy, when Anarawd of Gwynedd and his brothers defeated Æthelred and so brought about that collapse of the Mercian hegemony in Wales from which Alfred was only too pleased to benefit.
When Æthelred made a grant to Berkeley Abbey in 883, he did it with the approval of King Alfred, thus acknowledging Alfred's lordship. Thereafter he usually acted with Alfred's permission, but issued some charters in his own name without reference to Alfred, such as at a meeting in Risborough in Buckinghamshire in 884, showing that English Mercia extended quite far south-east towards London.
After the Battle of Edington in 878, Alfred established a network of fortified settlements, called burhs, in Wessex to protect his people and territory against Viking attacks, and when Æthelred accepted Alfred's lordship the burhs were extended into Mercia. One of the burhs was Worcester, where Æthelred worked with its bishop and used the standing Roman walls in the town's defences. Over the next two generations Worcester was transformed from an ecclesiastical settlement to a town with a diverse population of craftsmen.
London suffered severely from Viking attacks and was several times occupied by Viking armies. In 886, Alfred took possession of London, and according to Asser he "restored" the city and "made it habitable again". He then handed control to Æthelred. Historians, however, disagree about the circumstances. According to Frank Stenton, Alfred recovered London by force from the Vikings and handed it to Æthelred because it had previously been a Mercian town, and he respected the traditions of other kingdoms. Marios Costambeys takes a similar view, arguing that Alfred's decision was probably due to the need to maintain unity among the English who were outside Viking territory. Alfred Smyth suggests that the Chronicle's account reflects bias in Alfred's favour, and that Æthelred took charge because he had a greater role in London's recovery than the West Saxon chronicler was willing to admit. Some versions of the Chronicle state that Alfred besieged London in 883, and Simon Keynes argues that Alfred probably took London at that time and that the "occupation" in 886 may have been a restoration of London's defences following Viking attacks close to the city in 885.
Anglo-Saxon London, called Lundenwic, was located a mile west of Roman Londinium, but Lundenwic was undefended, and the restoration was carried out inside the walls of the old Roman city, especially an area close to the River Thames now called Queenhithe, but which was then known as Æthelred's Hythe after its Mercian ruler. Æthelred moved quickly to restore the area; in 889, he and Alfred granted property there to the Bishop of Worcester, and in 899, they made another grant to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Both bishops were, like Æthelred, Mercians and strong allies of King Alfred, who had the right to all tolls from markets along the river bank.
After the restoration of London, Alfred received the submission of "all the English people who were not under subjection to the Danes", and the alliance between Wessex and Mercia was cemented by the marriage of Æthelred to Alfred's oldest daughter, Æthelflæd. She is first recorded as Æthelred's wife in a charter of 887, but the marriage probably took place in the early to mid 880s. Æthelred was probably much older than his wife. They had a daughter, Ælfwynn, and according to the twelfth century chronicler, William of Malmesbury, she was their only child. In King Alfred's will, drawn up in the 880s, Æthelred was left a sword worth 100 mancuses.
In 892, two Viking armies attacked eastern England, and Æthelred took part in the defence. After the defeat of one Viking leader, Hastein, Alfred became godfather to one of Hastein's two sons and Æthelred to the other. Soon afterwards, the English captured Hastein's wife and children, but they were returned to him because the sons were godsons of the English leaders. In 893, Æthelred brought troops from London to join Alfred's son Edward against a Viking army at Thorney in Buckinghamshire, but the Vikings were too strong for a direct attack so they were allowed to leave English territory. Later in the year, a larger Viking force marched from Essex through Mercia to the Welsh border, followed by Æthelred with a joint force of Mercians and West Saxons. Welsh kings joined Æthelred to meet the Vikings at the Battle of Buttington, where according to Smyth "these invaders were utterly routed ... in what was the most decisive battle in the war", although Marios Costambeys states that the Vikings eventually cut their way out and retreated back to Essex. The Viking army finally dispersed in 896. For much of the time, Alfred had been in the west country defending Devonshire, and in the view of Richard Abels: "King Alfred had little to do directly with the great victories enjoyed by the English in 893–896. His son, Edward, and his ealdormen, in particular his son-in-law, Æthelred, had won the glory."
In the last years of the ninth century, three ealdormen ruled Mercia under Æthelred. Æthelflæd's maternal uncle, Æthelwulf, controlled western and possibly central Mercia, while the south and east were ruled by Æthelfrith, the father of Æthelstan Half-King. Alhhelm was responsible for the lands bordering the northern Danelaw. Æthelwulf and Alhhelm are not recorded after the turn of the century, and Æthelfrith may have been Æthelflæd's chief lieutenant when Æthelred's health collapsed soon afterwards. Æthelfrith may have been of West Saxon origin, appointed by Alfred to look after his interests in south-east Mercia.
Evidence from charters shows that Æthelred and Æthelflæd supported religious communities. In 883, Æthelred freed Berkeley Abbey from obligations to the king's feorm (payments in kind), and in 887 he confirmed (with Æthelflæd also attesting) the possession of land and transferred manpower to Pyrton Minster in Oxfordshire. In 901, they jointly gave land to Much Wenlock Abbey, and donated a gold chalice weighing thirty mancuses in honour of its former abbess, Saint Mildburgh. In 903, they negotiated a settlement over a former monastic estate which the bishops of Worcester had been trying to recover since the 840s, and Bishop Wærferth wrote "we never could get anywhere until Æthelred became Lord of the Mercians".
Later life
Some historians believe that at an unknown time in the decade 899 to 909, Æthelred's health collapsed and Æthelflæd became the effective ruler of Mercia. Cyril Hart and Maggie Bailey believe that it occurred by 902. Bailey cites "Mercian Register" entries from 902 showing Æthelflæd acting alone or in conjunction with Edward in military operations. Irish annals called the Three Fragments also suggest that Æthelred was unable to take an active part in government from about 902, although he did attend a meeting in 903 with King Edward, Æthelflæd and Ælfwynn. In 1998, Keynes suggested that Æthelred may have been incapacitated by illness at the end of his life, but in a summary of his career in 2014, Keynes does not mention this, stating that Æthelred and Æthelflæd cooperated with King Edward in campaigns against the Vikings. Martin Ryan also makes no mention of a decline in Æthelred's health, describing him as joining Edward in encouraging thegns to purchase land in Viking territories.
According to William of Malmesbury, King Edward's eldest son, the future King Æthelstan, was sent to be brought up at the court of Æthelred and Æthelflæd after Edward remarried in about 900. This is supported by one independent piece of evidence. According to a transcript dating from 1304 in York's archives, in 925, Æthelstan gave a grant of privileges to St Oswald's Priory in Gloucester "according to a pact of paternal piety which formerly he pledged with Æthelred, ealdorman of the people of the Mercians". When King Edward died in 924, Æthelstan initially faced opposition at the West Saxon court, but was accepted as king in Mercia.
After Æthelred's death in 911, Æthelflæd ruled as "Lady of the Mercians", but she did not inherit the Mercian territories of London and Oxford, which were taken by Edward. Æthelflæd died in 918, and their daughter Ælfwynn briefly ruled Mercia until deposed by Edward the Elder, who took the territory under his direct control.
St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester
Gloucester seems to have been the main seat of Æthelred's and Æthelflæd's power, and before 900 they founded a new minster there, dedicated to St Peter. In 909, a West Saxon and Mercian army raided Viking territory and seized the bones of the Northumbrian king and martyr, St Oswald, from Bardney in Lincolnshire. The bones were translated to the new Gloucester minster, which was renamed St Oswald's Priory in his honour. The acquisition of the relics raised the prestige of the new minster and increased its wealth by making it a focus for pilgrims. The historian Martin Ryan sees the new minster as something like a Mercian royal mausoleum, to replace the one at Repton destroyed by the Vikings, and Æthelred and Æthelflæd were buried there.
Status
Æthelred's status is disputed, and this is reflected in the varying titles given to him by different historians. He is sometimes called "ealdorman", but also "Lord of the Mercians" and "subking". Coinage issued in English Mercia in Ceolred's time named him as king, but in Æthelred's time it named the West Saxon king, yet Æthelred issued some charters in his own name, implying royal authority. West Saxon sources refer to him as an ealdorman, emphasising Mercian subordination to the West Saxon monarchy, whereas Mercian ones describe him as Lord of the Mercians, and Celtic ones sometimes as King of Mercia.The late tenth-century chronicler Æthelweard, in his annal for 893, called Æthelred "King of the Mercians", but recorded his death in 911 as that of the "Lord of the Mercians".
King Edward's influence over Mercia is unclear, and he may have had less power than his father. Edward's charters show Æthelred and Æthelflæd as accepting his royal authority, but their own charters make no reference to an overlord, and some use expressions such as "holding, governing and defending the sole rule of the Mercians", which come close to describing them as king and queen.
Pauline Stafford comments that "Alfred's dominance in the 890s over Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, was as debatable at the time as it still is." In the view of Ann Williams, "though he accepted West Saxon overlordship, Æthelred behaved rather as a king of Mercia than an ealdorman", and Charles Insley states that Mercia remained an independent kingdom until 920. To the Welsh and Irish looking east, Mercian rulers still kept all their old regality until Æthelflæd's death in 918, and Nick Higham argues that: "Celtic visions of Æthelred and Æthelflæd as king and queen certainly offer a different, and equally valid, contemporary take on the complex politics of this transition to a new English state."
In the Handbook of British Chronology David Dumville lists Æthelred as King Æthelred II, and thus a successor to the seventh century King Æthelred of Mercia. Keynes takes the West Saxon view, arguing that Alfred created the "kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons", inherited by his son Edward the Elder in 899, and Æthelred ruled Mercia under the king. However, Keynes also says:
Æthelred usually acted with the permission of or in association with King Alfred, but occasionally he acted independently of him. Although sometimes described as plain dux or ealdorman, his status was clearly quite different from that of other duces, for he is also accorded styles which aspire to divine grace and which appear to verge on the royal. In other words, there is no mistaking that the Mercians retained a conception of their ruler as a rightful successor to earlier kings, and a conception of their land as a kingdom with its own identity; but there is also no mistaking that Æthelred moved in an Alfredian world.
Notes
References
Sources
External links
9th-century births
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Anglo-Saxon warriors
Burials at St Oswald's Priory, Gloucester
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422366 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark%20New%20Zealand | Spark New Zealand | Spark New Zealand Limited is a New Zealand telecommunications and digital services company providing fixed-line telephone services, mobile phone services, broadband, and digital technology services including cloud, security, digital transformation and managed services. Its customers range from consumers to small - medium business, government agencies and large enterprise clients. It was formerly known as Telecom New Zealand until it was rebranded to Spark in 2014. It has operated as a publicly traded company since 1990. Spark's mobile network reaches 98% of New Zealand, with over 2.5 million mobile connections and 704,000 broadband connections
Spark is one of the largest companies by value on the New Zealand Exchange (NZX). As of 2007, it was the 39th largest telecommunications company in the OECD. The company is part of New Zealand Telecommunications Forum.
Telecom New Zealand was formed in 1987 from a division of the New Zealand Post Office, and privatised in 1990. In 2008, Telecom was operationally separated into three divisions under local loop unbundling initiatives by central government – Telecom Retail; Telecom Wholesale; and Chorus, the network infrastructure division. This separation effectively ended any remnants of monopoly that Telecom Retail once had in the market. In 2011 the demerger process was complete, with Telecom and Chorus becoming separate listed companies. The company changed its name to Spark New Zealand on 8 August 2014.
Spark has 63 retail locations around New Zealand, including 16 in Auckland.
History
The Postal Services Act 1987 split the then New Zealand Post Office into New Zealand Post Limited (trading as NZPost), Telecom Corporation of New Zealand Limited (trading as Telecom) and Post Office Bank Limited (trading as PostBank, sold to ANZ in 1989) and all three industries progressively deregulated. The selling price of Telecom was considered by some to be extremely low, given that Telecom had a monopoly of all phone lines in New Zealand at the time.
1990s
In 1990, Telecom was sold to two United States-based telecommunications companies, Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic) and Ameritech, for NZ$4.25 billion. After Telecom was privatized, the Kiwi Share agreement was drawn up, which included a provision that the company retained free local calling for residential customers.
In 1991, Telecom listed on the New Zealand, Australian and New York stock exchanges. The following year Telecom implemented a NZ$200 million fibre-optic cable connection between Australia and New Zealand. Also in 1991, Roderick Deane was appointed CEO of the company. Then in 1993 Ameritech and Bell Atlantic reduced their share in Telecom to a combined 49.6% and BellSouth New Zealand Limited (BellSouth), subsequently acquired by Vodafone, set up the first mobile network to compete with Telecom.
Clear Communications reached an agreement with Telecom in 1995 on local service interconnection. Also in 1995, Telecom created First Media Ltd to develop a cable television network across Auckland and Wellington, called First TV. In 1996 Telecom established a telephone exchange in the United States for international traffic, and launched Xtra.
1997 saw Telecom buy back NZ$1 billion of its shares. The following year, Ameritech sold down its 24.8% shareholding in an international public offering, and Bell Atlantic issued exchangeable notes that were convertible into the Telecom shares that it owned. Also in 1998, Southern Cross Cables Limited (half owned by Telecom) announced plans to build a fibre-optic cable linking New Zealand with Australia and North America, and Vodafone New Zealand bought BellSouth and started a campaign to attract Telecom customers to its network.
In December 1997 Patricia Reddy was appointed to the Telecom board. She remained on it until 2008. In September 2016 as Dame Patsy Reddy she became the Governor General of New Zealand.
In 1999, Telecom established a presence in Australia, buying 78% of AAPT, Australia's third-largest telecommunications company. Telecom upgraded its nationwide payphone network to smart card technology. Telecom's broadband Internet service based on ADSL technology, called JetStream, was launched and rolled-out progressively in local exchanges. Also at this time, Telecom began charging customers who connected to the Internet using a local dial up number, forcing all ISPs in New Zealand to change to an 0867 dial up number. This resulted in complaints that this was in breach of Telecom's Kiwishare Agreement where residential customers are allowed free local calling. The decade was rounded off with Theresa Gattung being appointed new CEO of Telecom, with Rod Deane moving to the position of chairman.
2000s
In 2000, Xtra signed up its 300,000th customer. Telecom also raised its shareholding in AAPT to 100%.
Evidence emerged in early 2002 of Telecom having exploited an ill-considered, or fraudulently made to order, accounting standard (FRS38) to inflate its year 2001 reported profit by some $263 million. This standard required holding companies to incorporate profits and losses of associate companies into their group accounts by way of "equity accounting" except when the associate is insolvent. Being insolvent has been wrongly taken as substantial evidence that the holding company will no longer share in the associates profits and losses. The associate company Southern Cross Cables paid Telecom $263 million in dividends as per (note 2 of) Telecom's 2001 annual accounts, $US200m as per Southern Cross's annual accounts. Southern Cross opened for (limited) business in November 2000 and its income from operations to 30 June 2001 was only $US13 million ($US55 million for the 2002 year). Southern Cross were insolvent to the extent of $US24 million as at 30 June 2000 and this increased to $US280 million as at June 2001 as a result of the dividends and other (net) expenses ($328 million in 2002). The dividends were treated as income in Telecom's accounts there being nothing in FRS 28 to say that they should not be although such inclusion did breach an overall requirement that the accounts present a fair view.
In 2003, a new logo was launched.
In 2004, Telecom purchased Gen-i Ltd (in May) and Computerland Ltd (in September). The company had 36 retail stores around the country. During the year, the company won the Roger Award for The Worst Transnational Corporation operating in New Zealand.
In 2005, Telecom introduced "Bitstream", a 256 kbit ADSL service sold at wholesale prices (at approximately 10% below the retail price) to other ISPs. Telecom also posted a profit of NZ$916 million. The company also launched online retail store Ferrit launches with about 150 retailers.
2006
9 May: An audio clip recorded on 2 March was released involving Telecom CEO Theresa Gattung admitting the use of confusion as a chief marketing tool in the industry. The March recording also dismissed the New Zealand Government as "too smart to do anything dumb" with regards to regulation.
Late May: Roderick Deane resigns as chairman, and is replaced by Wayne Boyd the following month.
July: Matt Crockett is appointed CEO of Telecom's newly formed Wholesale division.
All Computerland branches around New Zealand are rebranded as Gen-i.
2007
16 January: The Librarians Association of New Zealand put in a complaint about a Telecom advertisement where 3 young school children state that, "Only dumb kids read books, brainy kids have broadband." Originally Telecom stated that is the views of the young children and not Telecom and the advertisement was unscripted, later that week Telecom choose to edit the advertisement to remove the comments made by the children.
19 January: It is reported that Paritai Drive, Ōrākei, one of the richest streets in Auckland, is still not capable of receiving a broadband SL service and there are many other well populated areas around New Zealand still not capable of receiving broadband. Opposition Woosh Wireless immediately tested their service in the area and gave residents the opportunity to join their wireless broadband service.
5 February: Telecom announces that from March 2007 they will begin rolling out ADSL2+, more than a year after originally stated for roll out.
31 March: Telecom shuts down its old 025 D-AMPS/TDMA network with all 025 phones changed to 027 (CDMA).
May 2007: British Telecom have been in discussion with the New Zealand government regarding Telecom's monopoly control of the NZ broadband network. Three to four years previously, British Telecom were in a similar position to that which NZ Telecom are now in; the British broadband network has since been broken up and the NZ government are keen to learn and possibly copy the development/regulatory/investment model used by the British firm.
The Auckland Chamber of Commerce publicly stated that if Telecom did not invest in a next-generation high-speed network, comparable with that of other Western nations, they would fund a private fibre-optic based service in the 100 megabit speed range. The proposed coverage of this would be within 200m of a path running south from Auckland CBD (situated to allow as many businesses as possible to connect). Any company or private individual within this range would be offered a connection.
28 June: Telecom announced that Paul Reynolds, CEO of BT Wholesale, has been selected as the new CEO, to start on 27 September. Simon Moutter was appointed as acting CEO in the interim.
30 June: Theresa Gattung steps down as CEO, with a reported leaving payment of $5.125 million.
27 September: Dr Paul Reynolds starts as CEO of Telecom.
In November 2007, the Boost Mobile brand was discontinued in New Zealand by Telecom..
21 November: Mark Ratcliffe, Chief Operating Officer for Technology, is appointed CEO of Telecom's soon-to-be spun off network division.
2008
16 January: Telecom announces the formation of Chorus, its new network infrastructure division.
31 March: Telecom officially separates into three divisions (Chorus, Telecom Wholesale, Telecom Retail)
1 April: Russ Houlden, a colleague of Reynolds at BT, is appointed Chief Financial Officer. He replaces Marko Bogoievski, who joined Infratil.
2009
12 January: Telecom announces the closure of its online retail store Ferrit.
August: An industrial dispute emerged between Chorus and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union after servicing contracts in the Auckland and Northland regions are awarded to Australian company Visionstream, which planned to change technicians' employment contracts to a dependent contractor model.
In October a new logo was announced.
2010s
2010
November: Telecom moves into its newly built world HQ on Victoria St in the Auckland CBD. Costing the developer $280 million, it will consist of 2700 staff and be the largest corporate move in New Zealand history.
2011
24 May: Crown Fibre Holdings announced that Telecom had been successful in partnering with the Government to build a fibre network.
9 June: The National Business Review reveals that in OIA documents that the Department of Internal Affairs considered at least one text message sent by Telecom to be in breach of the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007.
1 December: Telecom divests itself of Chorus, the Network Infrastructure division, in a one for five share deal, with Chorus becoming a separately listed company.
2013
9 December: Telecom announces sale of AAPT for A$450 million
2014
21 February: Telecom announces a name change to 'Spark', which took effect on 8 August 2014 to better reflect the company's new direction and aspirations.
25 June 2014: Spark announce Lightbox, an online movie and TV show streaming service, in competition with Netflix and SkyTV. Lightbox went live on 27 August 2014.
8 August: Telecom rebrands as Spark. Individual subsidiaries of the company are rebranded to reflect the name change such as Telecom Mobile becomes Spark Mobile, Telecom Foundation becomes Spark Foundation, Gen-i is rebranded as Spark Digital. The company kept the existing Star shaped logo with each division using a different colour for the logo such as silver for Spark New Zealand, orange or pink for Spark Home & Mobile stores, green for Spark Business and purple for Spark Digital.
5–7 September: Spark experiences nationwide outages due to a denial of service attack, which was believed to have largely originated from malware that installed itself onto customers' computers when they clicked on malicious links to celebrity photos leaked in August.
2015
12 August: Spark released a new cloud based consumer service called Morepork, which offers smart home based security services. This enabled consumers to purchase security hardware and services through a monthly subscription for home monitoring linked to their mobile phone.
7 December: Spark purchased a South Island based IT services firm, Computer Concepts Ltd, for $50 million NZD.
2019
14 March: Spark launched its subscription based sports streaming service Spark Sport. The service would compete against Sky Sport (New Zealand) which at the time had a near monopoly on pay TV sports rights in New Zealand.
19 December: It was announced that Spark would be selling its Lightbox streaming service to the satellite television company Sky Television, which intends to merge Lightbox into its own online streaming service Neon in 2020. Following the merger, Spark will partner with Sky to make the service available to Spark customers through the telecommunication company's entertainment offers.
2020s
2023
4 April: Spark announced that it would invest between NZ$250 million and NZ$300 million into building data centres over the next three years, and between NZ$40 million and NZ$60 million into its 5G business over the next three years.
Mobile network
Telecom started the first cellular network services using AMPS in 1987. This transitioned to D-AMPS TDMA digital services in the early 1990s. The service in the 800 MHz band gave great geographic coverage and set the bar for service performance for many years.
In 1996 Telecom introduced an innovative and first-to-market wireless data cellular network known as CDPD (Cellular Digital Packet Data) that provided IP connections with mobility. Introduced to the market by the product manager, David Beale, they succeeded in the very first iOT-device connections in the region connecting, amongst other things, Coke's vending machines, NZ Post's couriers and parcel tracking, and telemetry data from the Americas Cup yacht races in Auckland to feed a realtime TV graphics service.
Telecom Mobile, the mobile division of Telecom, reached 500,000 mobile customers connected to its network in 1998, which doubled to one million customers by 2000.
In 2005, a phreaker exposed a vulnerability with the mobile network, allowing public access to almost anyone's voicemail; in response to concerns over privacy and security, this network issue was resolved.
On 31 March 2007, the 025 D-AMPS ("TDMA") cellular network was closed down. Then on 8 June of that year, Telecom Mobile announced plans to build a hybrid W-CDMA/UMTS-CDMA 850 MHz network, based on the WCDMA HSPA technology, to eventually replace its current CDMA EV-DO network. On 29 May 2009, Telecom launched its new network, branded as "XT", to the public.
In December 2009 and February 2010, Telecom's new XT Mobile Network experienced high-profile failures for many customers in locations from Taupo south, due to a radio network controller failure in Christchurch. As a result of the loss of service Telecom offered a $5 million compensation package for its customers.
In April 2010, Telecom released its first Android handset on the XT Mobile Network, the LG GW620.
On 31 July 2012, the Telecom CDMA mobile network was closed down.
In September 2013, Telecom officially launched new Ultra Mobile branding and plans. These plans include a free 4G upgrade (4G was made available later in November 2013) with a 1GB of data per day from Telecom WiFi hotspots. In October 2013, Telecom sought clearance to acquire management rights for parts of the 700 MHz spectrum with the intention of aiding in the development of its 4G mobile network.
Industry regulation and company restructuring
In 2000, the New Zealand Government conducted a comprehensive review of the regulatory regime in the telecommunications industry. Subsequently, in 2001 the Telecommunications Act was passed, which among other things established the role of a Telecommunications Commissioner.
In a decision by the Government on 3 May 2006, Telecom was forced to unbundle the local loop, to provide "access to fast, competitively priced broadband internet". The decision significantly affected the company's market share, and allowed competitors (such as TelstraClear, Orcon and Ihug) to offer broadband and other communications services throughout New Zealand by installing their own equipment in exchanges. The announcement of this decision was rushed ahead of schedule, as the documents were leaked to Telecom who advised the government of the leak. It was widely reported that the government had intended to make the announcement during the 2006 Budget. Most of Telecom's competitors and many independent commentators such as InternetNZ and Paul Budde applauded the decision, with opposition to unbundling coming from the Business Roundtable, Federated Farmers, and Bruce Sheppard (representing Telecom shareholders). Legislation was introduced to enable the regulatory changes. Three other political parties (New Zealand First, the Green Party and United Future) supported the decision, which would give the government at least 66 votes if there were no votes against the party line. The main opposition National Party initially opposed the unbundling decision, but later voted in favour of it after a select committee hearing. This left the ACT Party alone in opposing the decision.
The company was then affected by a series of other government decisions. Firstly, in early-June 2006 the Commerce Commission ruled on the contentious issue of mobile telephone termination charges, announcing that calls between a landline and a mobile phone within a geographically defined boundary could be connected free of termination charges. This ruling allowed Vodafone New Zealand to establish a mobile phone product which could also provide free local calling. Then, the Commerce Commission granted two of Telecom's competitors, CallPlus and ihug, access to an unrestricted, Unbundled Bitstream Service, which would allow them to provide competitive broadband services.
On 27 June 2006, the company announced that it would voluntarily separate its business into two separate operating business units – Wholesale and Retail. The Government introduced the Telecommunications Amendment Bill in November 2006 to force Telecom to open its network to competitors. The bill officially split Telecom into three business units from 31 March 2008, with network access separated from the wholesale and retail units.
In January 2012 Telecom launched a new Mobile Network aimed at the youth market named Skinny Mobile
On 28 March 2013, Telecom announced that it would reduce staff levels by constraint on recruitment activity and redundancies. This followed from speculation by MP Clare Curran that up to 1500 jobs would be cut from the company.
Spark Broadband
Spark is New Zealand's largest internet service provider. It was formerly named Xtra. The next largest ISP in the New Zealand market is One NZ, a position it acquired when it purchased TelstraClear in 2012.
Spark offers asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL), very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL), fibre to the premises (FTTP) fixed-line broadband, and Wireless Broadband.
Spark Mobile
Spark NZ is New Zealand's largest mobile operator by market-share. As of 2021, Spark NZ had 41% of the New Zealand market, beating competitor One NZ (then called Vodafone) who was at 38%. Telecom's mobile network was branded as "XT", and operates at 850 MHz nationwide (with some 2100 MHz overlay in urban areas), and delivers 3G data connectivity wherever there is coverage.
Telecom originally operated a TDMA (AMPS, Digital D-AMPS/TDMA) mobile network; this was superseded by its CDMA network. The TDMA network was turned off on 31 March 2007, and most of its customers migrated to CDMA. The CDMA EV-DO network was marketed as T3G, a 2 MB third-generation mobile system. Telecom announced on 8 June 2007 the intention to build a W-CDMA/UMTS network, to be called XT Mobile Network, based on WCDMA HSPA technology, to replace its current CDMA EV-DO network. The network was launched on 29 May 2009. The CDMA network ran in parallel with XT until it was shut down on 31 July 2012.
The TDMA network used the 025 mobile prefix, using a mixture of six- and seven-digit subscriber numbers. With the switch to CDMA, Telecom migrated to the 027 prefix and standardised the subscriber numbers to seven digits, adding a 4 to the beginning of old six-digit numbers.
Customer numbers and market share
Spark competes with One NZ, 2degrees and mobile virtual network operators for market share. In November 2015, Spark had 2,200,000 mobile customers at 40% market share.
In 2021, it was estimated that Spark NZ held a 41% market share in New Zealand.
The following shows customer numbers and market share information for Telecom Mobile, covering both the now-shut-down TDMA and CDMA networks and Spark's current 3G, 4G, and 5G networks.
Spark Sport
Spark Sport was a New Zealand sports streaming service, owned and operated by Spark. The service was launched on 14 March 2019 after Spark obtained the New Zealand broadcast rights to various World Rugby events including the 2019 Rugby World Cup a year earlier. During that time, Spark Sport obtained the rights to several other sports to build its catalog, until the streaming service was ready for launch, coverage was sublicienced to TVNZ to screen. Its first major live sport broadcast was the streaming of the 2019 Australian F1 Grand Prix.
There were concerns that Spark's broadcast of the Rugby World Cup would struggle under New Zealand's internet capabilities especially in rural communities and anticipated audience numbers streaming matches resulting in similar issues to Optus Sport's broadcasting FIFA World Cup 2018 in Australia. On the second day of the Rugby World Cup, Spark Sport suffered technical issues during its live stream of the match between New Zealand and South Africa leaving viewers unable to watch the game, as a result broadcast of the second half was simulcast of traditional television on TVNZ Duke as part of a contingency plan with free-to-air broadcaster TVNZ for issues during the Rugby World Cup. Viewers would continue to report issues throughout the tournament, despite the issues Spark responded noting that there were no issues from their end in the broadcast feed and that the issues experienced were due to the individual viewer's set up configuration of their streaming devices.
Following its broadcast of the 2019 Rugby World Cup, Spark Sport announced it had secured a six-year broadcast deal with New Zealand Cricket for all domestic and international cricket played within New Zealand. The rights had been previously held by Sky Sport for over 25 years. Spark Sport's coverage of cricket is presented by Scotty Stevenson, with regular analysts and commentators including Mark Richardson, Craig McMillan, Craig Cumming, Brendon McCullum, Grant Elliott, Stephen Fleming, Rebecca Rolls and Frances Mackay. American outside broadcast provider Gravity Media provided the equipment to cover Spark's coverage, brought over from Australia, while UK's Whisper TV provided the overall production element. During the 2022/23 season NEP Group was given the outside broadcast contract, which, ironically, bought outside broadcast company On Site Broadcasting (OSB) from Sky in 2020.
Spark Sport was the host broadcaster for the 2021 Rugby World Cup held in New Zealand.
Spark had previously broadcast sport through its subscription video on-demand service Lightbox partnering with Coliseum Sports Media to deliver a subscription-based sports streaming service called Lightbox Sport streaming golf, English Premier League football and French Top 14 rugby.
In December 2022, Spark Sport announced that it would be shutting down in the second half of 2023 due to a combination of financial and technical problems. The remaining three years broadcasting rights for all New Zealand Cricket international and domestic games within New Zealand would go to TVNZ from 1 July 2023. The Formula 1 had moved to Sky TV and Sky Sport.
Previously held sports rights
Rugby union
2019 Men's Rugby World Cup
2021 Women's Rugby World Cup
European Rugby Champions Cup
United Rugby Championship
Manu Samoa home games
Ikale Tahi Tonga home games
Football
2020 UEFA Euro
2022 UEFA Women's Euro
UEFA Nations League
UEFA Champions League
UEFA Europa League
UEFA Europa Conference League
UEFA Super Cup
UEFA Women's Champions League
2021 Copa America
2022 Copa America Femenina
Copa Libertadores
Copa Sudamericana
Recopa CONMEBOL
CONMEBOL World Cup Qualifying
Premier League
Women's Super League
FA Cup
FA Community Shield
EFL Cup
Women's FA Cup
Cricket
New Zealand Cricket
Home internationals
Men's Super Smash and Women's Super Smash
The Ford Trophy final
England and Wales Cricket Board
Home internationals
The Hundred
Vitality Blast
Royal London One-Day Cup final
Highlights from ICC events.
Motorsport
Formula One + Junior Series (F2, F3)
World Rally Championship + Other Series (WRC2, WRC3)
MotoGP + Junior Series (Moto2, Moto3)
DTM
Porsche Supercup
World Rallycross Championship
EuroFormula Open Championship
European Le Mans Series
International GT Open
Toyota Racing Series
Rugby league
2021 Men's Rugby League World Cup
2021 Women's Rugby League World Cup
2021 Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup
2021 Physical Disability Rugby League World Cup
Hockey
Men's Pro League
Women's Pro League
Tennis
WTA Tour events excluding events played in New Zealand.
Other Sports
Horse racing via TAB Trackside channels
MLB
NFL
NBA via NBA TV
UFC pay-per-view events
Criticism
When Telecom held a general monopoly in New Zealand telecommunications, it was criticised for using its incumbent status to charge high prices. Prices have subsequently dropped as competition in the market has increased.
Competitors alleged that Telecom engaged in unfair practices to prevent them from gaining ground, for example by reselling broadband capacity to Xtra at lower prices than to other ISPs. In July 2005, two dozen Internet service providers formally complained to New Zealand's Commerce Commission via a letter. Notably absent from the list of signatories were Telecom's ISP, Xtra, and several ISPs owned by its main competitor, TelstraClear. On 1 February 2007 the Consumers' Institute gave its "supreme ass award" for bad products to Telecom for its Xtra broadband service, Consumers Institute executive director David Russell claimed that since Telecom "unleashed" its broadband speeds, the institute had been "inundated with complaints of slower speeds and frustrating cutouts". Telecom has been given the Roger Award more than once, in 2004 and 2007 – and only the second company awarded as such, with the defunct TranzRail being the first.
The New Zealand Treasury once estimated the economic loss from Telecom's (now former) monopoly to be in the region of $50–$250 million a year. Another study commissioned in 1998 by competitor Clear (later TelstraClear) estimated that the loss was $400 million a year. At a retail level Telecom now faces competition in all areas — cellular, internet, toll-calls and, subject to ongoing developments, in local calling. At a network level these retail services often resell Telecom wholesale products.
Telecom claimed one reason for poor broadband uptake in New Zealand was because of the fact New Zealand residential subscribers enjoy free local calling. Telecom stated "customers have the option of moving to faster broadband services, but free local calling creates a disincentive by allowing them to use dial-up for as long they want" (i.e. they do not have to pay a per-minute call charge while using dial-up, unlike many other countries where local calls are charged for). However, some experts and competitors disagreed – including the secretary of the OECD.
Telecom failed to reach their self-imposed goal of around 83,333 wholesale broadband customers by the end of 2005. During her opening address to parliament, Prime Minister Helen Clark criticised the state of the internet in New Zealand. This was followed by extensive criticism in the media such as in two high-profile television programmes, in two episodes of Campbell Live (whose past major sponsors include Telecom), during which CEO Theresa Gattung was challenged by host John Campbell, and an episode of the New Zealand edition of Sunday. Critical articles had been published by various magazines and newspapers, including the largest newspaper, The New Zealand Herald. Of significance, many of these were lengthy and high-profile articles compared to many previous articles critical of Telecom — among the most noticeable of these was published by the National Business Review, in which it was stated that "Far from being 'Xtraordinary', as its multimillion dollar advertising would have you believe, Telecom is strangling the nation's advancement." While in Wellington for an ICANN meeting, Vint Cerf was reported to have made a personal visit to David Cunliffe, the telecommunications minister where it is believed he recommended that Telecom be unbundled. The government investigated whether it needed to force Telecom to unbundle the network, thereby allowing other companies access and improving broadband service for consumers.
From 2007, Yahoo! provided Telecom's email service, which came under heavy criticism in early 2013 following a spam and phishing attack described as the biggest to have ever hit the country. Telecom and Yahoo! automatically reset tens of thousands of users' passwords. In April, Telecom announced that despite the issue, it would keep Yahoo! on as an email provider. Problems with Telecom's YahooXtra email continued into December 2013 and further into 2014 with the latest problems reported on 10 January. They later moved their mail service to SMX, a New Zealand-based provider, in May 2017.
References
External links
Spark Foundation
Companies based in Auckland
Companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange
Companies listed on the New Zealand Exchange
Consumer electronics retailers of New Zealand
Dual-listed companies
Mobile phone companies of New Zealand
Privatisation in New Zealand
Telecommunications companies established in 1987
Telecommunications companies of New Zealand
New Zealand companies established in 1987 |
422461 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%20Mary%20University%20of%20London | Queen Mary University of London | Queen Mary University of London (QMUL, or informally QM, and formerly Queen Mary and Westfield College) is a public research university in Mile End, East London, England. It is a member institution of the federal University of London.
Today, Queen Mary has six campuses across East and Central London in Mile End, Whitechapel, Charterhouse Square, Ilford, Lincoln's Inn Fields and West Smithfield, as well as an international presence in China, France, Greece and Malta. The Mile End campus is the largest self-contained campus of any London-based university. In 2018/19 the university had around 26,000 students. Queen Mary is organised into three faculties – the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Science and Engineering, and Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Queen Mary is a member of the Russell Group of British research universities, the Association of Commonwealth Universities and Universities UK. Queen Mary is a major centre for medical teaching and research and is part of UCLPartners, the world's largest academic health science centre. Queen Mary runs programmes at the University of London Institute in Paris, taking over the functions provided by Royal Holloway.
There are nine Nobel Laureates amongst Queen Mary's alumni, current and former staff. Notable alumni include Ronald Ross, who discovered the origin and cure for malaria, Davidson Nicol, who discovered the breakdown of insulin in the human body, British politician Peter Hain, and Professor Andrew Pollard, the chief investigator of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
History
St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College and The London Hospital Medical College
The Medical College of The Royal London Hospital (now part of the School of Medicine and Dentistry) was England's first medical school when it opened in 1785.
In 1850, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first fully qualified female doctor in the UK, after training at St Bartholomew's Hospital.
People's Palace
The predecessor to Queen Mary College was founded in the mid-Victorian era as a People's Palace when growing awareness of conditions in London's East End led to drives to provide facilities for local inhabitants, popularised in the 1882 novel All Sorts of Conditions of Men – An Impossible Story by Walter Besant, which told of how a rich and clever couple from Mayfair went to the East End to build a ”Palace of Delight, with concert halls, reading rooms, picture galleries, art and designing schools." Although not directly responsible for the conception of the People's Palace, the novel did much to popularise it.
The trustees of the Beaumont Trust, administering funds left by Barber Beaumont, purchased the site of the former Bancroft's School from the Drapers' Company. On 20 May 1885 the Drapers' Court of Assistants resolved to grant £20,000 "for the provision of the technical schools of the People's Palace." The foundation stone was laid on 28 June 1886 and on 14 May 1887 Queen Victoria opened the palace's Queen's Hall as well as laying the foundation stone for the technical schools in the palace's east wing.
The technical schools were opened on 5 October 1888, with the entire palace completed by 1892. However others saw the technical schools as one day becoming a technical university for the East End. In 1892 the Drapers' Company provided £7,000 a year for ten years to guarantee the educational side income.
East London College
In 1895 John Leigh Smeathman Hatton, director of evening classes (1892–1896; later director of studies 1896–1908 and principal 1908–1933), proposed introducing a course of study leading to the Bachelor of Science degree of the University of London. By the start of the 20th century, the first degrees were awarded and Hatton, along with several other professors, were recognised as teachers of the University of London. In 1906 an application for Parliamentary funds "for the aid of Educational Institutions engaged in work of a University nature", led to the college being admitted on an initial three-year trial basis as a school of the University of London on 15 May 1907 as East London College.
Teaching of aeronautical engineering began in 1907, which led to the first UK aeronautical engineering department being established in 1909, boasting a ground-breaking wind tunnel and creating what became (following the demise of the University of Paris) the oldest aeronautical programme in the world.
In 1910 the college's status in the University of London was extended for a further five years, with unlimited membership achieved in May 1915. During this period the organisation of the governors of the People's Palace was rearranged, creating the separate People's Palace Committee and East London College Committee, both under the Palace Governors, as a sign of the growing separation of the two concepts within a single complex.
During the First World War, the college admitted students from The London Hospital Medical College who were preparing for the preliminary medical examination, the first step in a long process that would eventually bring the two institutions together. After the war, the college grew, albeit constrained by the rest of the People's Palace to the west and a burial ground immediately to the east. In 1920 it obtained both the Palace's Rotunda (now the Octagon) and rooms under the winter gardens at the west of the palace, which became chemical laboratories. The college's status was also unique, being the only School of the University of London that was subject to both the Charity Commissioners and the Board of Education.
In April 1929 the College Council decided it would take the steps towards applying to the Privy Council for a Royal Charter, but on the advice of the Drapers' Company first devised a scheme for development and expansion, which recommended amongst other things to re-amalgamate the People's Palace and the college, with guaranteed provision of the Queen's Hall for recreational purposes, offering at least freedom of governance if not in space.
Queen Mary College
In the early hours of 25 February 1931 a fire destroyed the Queen's Hall, though both the college and the winter gardens escaped. In the coming days discussions on reconstruction led to the proposal that the entire site be transferred to the college which would then apply for a charter alone. The Drapers' Company obtained St Helen's Terrace, a row of six houses neighbouring the site, and in July 1931 it was agreed to give these over to the People's Palace for a new site adjacent to the old, which would now become entirely the domain of the college. Separation was now achieved. The Charter was now pursued, but the Academic Board asked for a name change, feeling that "East London" carried unfortunate associations that would hinder the college and its graduates. With the initial proposed name, "Queen's College", having already been taken by The Queen's College, Oxford and "Victoria College" felt to be unoriginal, "Queen Mary College" was settled on. The Charter of Incorporation was presented on 12 December 1934 by Queen Mary herself.
Under the charter
During the Second World War, the college was evacuated to Cambridge, where it shared with King's College. After the war the college returned to London, facing many of the same problems but with prospects for westward expansion. The East End had suffered considerable bomb damage (although the college itself had incurred little) and consequently several areas of land near to the college site now became vacant. New buildings for physics, engineering, biology and chemistry were built on the new sites, whilst the arts took over the space vacated in the original building, now renamed the Queens' Building.
Limited accommodation resulted in the acquisition of further land in South Woodford (now directly connected to Mile End tube station by means of the Central line's eastward extension), upon which tower blocks were established. The college also obtained the Co-operative Wholesale Society's clothing factory on the Mile End Road which was converted into a building for the Faculty of Laws (and some other teaching), as well as the former headquarters of Spratt's Patent Ltd (operators of the "largest dog biscuit factory in the world" – see Spratt's Complex) at 41–47 Bow Road, which was converted into a building for the Faculty of Economics founded by Maurice Peston, Baron Peston. Both faculties were physically separated from what was now a campus to the west.
From the mid-1960s until the mid-1980s the college proposed to link with the London Hospital Medical College and St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College with a joint facility in Mile End. A further link with both The London and St. Bartholomew's was made in 1974 when an anonymous donor provided for the establishment of a further hall of residence in Woodford, to be divided equally between Queen Mary College students and the two medical colleges.
At the start of the 1980s changing demographics and finances led to a reorganisation of the University of London. At Queen Mary some subjects, such as Russian and Classics were discontinued, whilst the college became one of five in the university with a concentration of laboratory sciences, including the transfer of science departments from Westfield College, Chelsea College, Queen Elizabeth College and Bedford College.
1989 to 2010
In 1989 Queen Mary College (informally known as QMC) merged with Westfield College to form Queen Mary & Westfield College (often abbreviated to QMW). Over subsequent years, activities were concentrated on the Queen Mary site, with the Westfield site eventually sold.
In 1990, The London Hospital was renamed The Royal London Hospital, after marking its 250th year, and a re-organisation of medical education within the University of London resulted in most of the free-standing medical schools being merged with existing large colleges to form multi-faculty institutions. In 1995 The London Hospital Medical College and St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College merged into Queen Mary & Westfield College to form an entity named Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.
In 2000 the college changed its name for general public use to Queen Mary, University of London; in 2013, the college legally changed its name to Queen Mary University of London.
The VISTA telescope is a 4-metre class wide-field telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile that was conceived and developed by a consortium of UK universities led by Queen Mary University, costing approximately £36m.
The Westfield Student Village opened in 2004 on the Mile End Campus, bringing over 2,000 rooms to students and a huge array of facilities, restaurants, and cafes.
The Blizard Building, home to the Medical School's Institute of Cell and Molecular Science opened at the Whitechapel campus in 2005. The award-winning building was designed by Will Alsop, and is named after William Blizard, an English surgeon and founder of The London Hospital Medical College in 1785.
The year 2006 saw the refurbishment of The Octagon, the original library of the People's Palace dating back to 1888.
In 2007 parts of the School of Law – postgraduate facilities and the Centre for Commercial Law Studies – moved to premises in Lincoln's Inn Fields in central London. The Women at Queen Mary Exhibition was staged in the Octagon, marking 125 years of Westfield College and 120 years of Queen Mary College.
In September 2009, the world's first science education centre located within a working research laboratory opened at the Blizard Institute of Cell and Molecular Science, hoping to inspire children with school tours and interactive games and puzzles.
2010 to present
Queen Mary became one of the few university-level institutions to implement a requirement of the A* grade at A-Level after its introduction in 2010 on some of their most popular courses, such as Engineering, Law, and Medicine.
Following on from the 2010 UK student protests, Queen Mary set fees of £9,000 per year for September 2012 entry, while also offering bursaries and scholarships.
On 12 March 2012 it was announced that Queen Mary would be joining the Russell Group in August 2012. Later in March, Queen Mary and the University of Warwick announced the creation of a strategic partnership, including research collaboration, joint teaching of English, history and computer science undergraduates, and the creation of eight joint post-doctoral research fellowships.
In January 2013, Queen Mary established the world's first professorial chair in animal replacement science.
From 2014, Queen Mary began awarding its own degrees, rather than those of the University of London.
Queen Mary became the first Russell Group university to offer Degree Apprenticeships and three years later was the first UK university to launch a social change degree, the BSc in Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship.
In 2021, Queen Mary became the first UK university to receive the Platinum-level Engage Watermark from the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement.
Campuses
The main Mile End campus contains the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Faculty of Science and Engineering, the Queens' Building, the main college library, the student union, Draper's bar and club, several restaurants, a number of halls of residences and a gym. The educational and research sites of the Arts Research Centre, Computer Science, the large Engineering building, G.E. Fogg Building, Francis Bancroft Building, G. O. Jones Building, Joseph Priestley Building, Lock-keeper's Graduate Centre, and the Mathematical Science Building, are all located within the Mile End campus.
The Grade II listed Queens' Building is home to the Octagon. Built in 1887, the Octagon was originally the Queen Mary University of London library. It was designed by architect ER Robson and inspired by the British Museum Reading Room. In 2006, "brightly coloured leather bound books" were restored and reinstated to the bookshelves, along with "busts of famous literati looking down from the beautiful high domed ceiling."
The People's Palace is home to the Grade II listed art deco style Great Hall; this has a seating capacity of over 700 and standing of 1,000. It is complemented by 3 lecture theatres and a foyer. The night the votes were counted for the 1945 general election, the then local MP for Limehouse and Leader of the Labour Party, Clement Attlee, was present at The People's Palace, where he learned the final result and received confirmation that he had become Prime Minister. A statue of Attlee that was originally displayed outside Limehouse Library was, after its restoration, unveiled outside the Queen Mary library by Peter Mandelson in April 2011.
The Whitechapel campus encompasses Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, the Whitechapel Medical Library, the award-winning Blizard Institute of Cell and Molecular Science, and The Royal London Hospital.
The West Smithfield campus of the School of Medicine and Dentistry, the West Smithfield Medical Library, the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, the John Vane Science Centre, the Heart Centre and St Bartholomew's Hospital are based in Smithfield.
The Centre for Commercial Law Studies and LLM teaching and postgraduate law research activities are based in Lincoln's Inn Fields in Holborn.
The Malta campus, situated on the island of Gozo, is part of Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. Students taught at the Malta campus are offered the same curriculum as taught in London, for the MBBS Medicine and Medicine Foundation programmes.
Harold Pinter Drama Studio
The Harold Pinter Drama Studio is the main teaching and performance space of the students and staff of the Department of Drama. On 26 April 2005, Harold Pinter, who was to win the Nobel Prize in Literature later that year, gave a public reading and was interviewed by his official authorised biographer, Michael Billington, in the studio named for Pinter and located as part of the Faculty of Arts (Department of Drama, School of English and Drama) in the Mile End campus, to celebrate its refurbishment.
Organisation and administration
Queen Mary and Westfield College was established by Act of Parliament and the granting of a Royal charter in 1989, following the merger of Queen Mary College (incorporated by charter in 1934) and Westfield College (incorporated in 1933). The Charter has subsequently been revised three times: in 1995 (as a result of the merger of the college with the Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry); in 2008 (as a result of the Privy Council awarding the College Degree Awarding Powers; and in July 2010 (following a governance review).
Schools, faculties and departments
There are three faculties and an interdisciplinary life sciences institute. These are split further into independent schools, institutes, and departments:
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
School of Business and Management
School of Economics and Finance
School of English and Drama
School of Languages, Linguistics and Film
School of Geography
Global Shakespeare (in partnership with the University of Warwick)
School of History
School of Law
Centre for Commercial Law Studies
Department of Law
School of Politics and International Relations
Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry
Barts Cancer Institute
The Blizard Institute
Institute of Dentistry
Institute of Health Sciences Education
William Harvey Research Institute
Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine
The Centre of the Cell
Faculty of Science and Engineering
Institute of Bioengineering
School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences
School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Materials Science
Centre for Bioengineering
Centre for Sustainable Engineering
Centre for Intelligent Transport
Centre for Research in Engineering and Materials Education
School of Mathematical Sciences
School of Physics and Astronomy
Materials Research Institute (MRI)
Life Sciences Institute
Centre for Computational Biology
Centre for Genomic Health
Centre for Mind in Society
Institute of Bioengineering
Central administration
Queen Mary is an 'exempt charity' under the Charities Act 1993. The Higher Education Funding Council for England has been Queen Mary's principal regulator since June 2010.
Finances
In the financial year ended 31 July 2011, Queen Mary had a total income (including share of joint ventures) of £297.1 million (2009/10 – £289.82 million) and total expenditure of £295.35 million (2009/10 – £291.56 million). Key sources of income included £100.02 million from funding body grants (2009/10 – £103.97 million), £82.8 million from tuition fees and education contracts (2009/10 – £76.22 million), £73.66 million from research grants and contracts (2009/10 – £68.47 million) and £1.17 million from endowment and investment income (2008/09 – £1.48 million). During the 2010/11 financial year Queen Mary had a capital expenditure of £42.53 million (2009/10 – £45.61 million).
At year end Queen Mary had endowments of £33.59 million (2009/10 – £29.95 million) and total net assets of £300.79 million (2009/10 – £291.38 million).
Queen Mary offers several packages of bursaries and scholarships, many of which are aimed at supporting undergraduate students from low income households. In 2017/18, 5,215 students were awarded a Queen Mary Bursary worth £7,724,401, 53 students received Science and Engineering Excellence Scholarships worth £157,500 and 21 students received Economics and Finance Excellence Scholarships worth £63,000.
Academic profile
Around 32,000 students study at the 21 academic schools and institutes, with over 40 per cent coming from overseas, representing over 170 different nationalities. Queen Mary awarded over £2 million in studentships to prospective postgraduate students for the 2011/12 academic year.
Research
QMUL was ranked joint ninth in the UK amongst multi-faculty institutions for the quality (GPA) of its research. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework it was 20th for its Research Power, fifth in the UK for the quality of research outputs and the Linguistics department was ranked first in the UK.
In the UK Research Assessment Exercise results published in December 2008, Queen Mary was placed 11th according to an analysis by The Guardian newspaper and 13th according to The Times Higher Education Supplement, out of the 132 institutions submitted for the exercise. The Times Higher commented "the biggest star among the research-intensive institutions was Queen Mary, University of London, which went from 48th in 2001 to 13th in the 2008 Times Higher Education table, up 35 places."
Since 2007 Queen Mary University of London's Centre for Digital Music develops the free and open source software Sonic Visualizer for audio analysis, in particular for analyzing audio spectrograms. With over 100,000 downloads, it is the most famous software for its category.
The QS World University Rankings 2019 ranked Queen Mary third in the world for research citations for the subject of medicine.
The growth and strength of research at the college was rewarded with an invitation to join the Russell Group of research-intensive universities in the UK in 2012.
The university is also a member of the Screen Studies Group, London. Other research highlights include an international team of scientists, led by astronomers at Queen Mary, discovering a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. In 2018, a project involving Queen Mary researchers reached its goal of sequencing 100,000 whole genomes from National Health Service patients.
Discoveries
The Queen Mary University of London released the AMIGOS dataset, which contains neuro-physiological data of individuals and can be utilized for scientific reasons, to investigate human emotions.
The AMIGOS dataset has been used in hundreds of scientific studies on signal processing.
Libraries
Queen Mary's main library is located on the Mile End campus where most subjects are represented. It also has two medical libraries in Whitechapel and West Smithfield. Usual opening hours are 8am to midnight. Since September 2017, the Mile End Library has been open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week during term time (including bank holidays).
As members of a college of the University of London, students at Queen Mary have access to Senate House Library, shared by other colleges such as King's College London and University College London, in addition to library access throughout most of the individual University of London colleges, subject to approval at the given University.
Partnerships
Queen Mary offers a joint degree programme with Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. This was the first of its kind to be approved by the PRC Ministry of Education, it is taught 50% by each institution in English. In Beijing staff from Queen Mary teach part of the programme and the students receive two degrees, one from each university. The programmes are in Telecommunications and Management and Ecommerce Engineering and Law. Almost 2,000 students are studying on these programmes in 2009 and the first cohort graduated in the Summer of 2008. The joint programmes have been praised by the UK Quality Assurance Agency; the PRC Ministry of Education; and the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Queen Mary collaborated with Royal Holloway to help run programmes at the University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP) which is a central academic body of the University of London located in Paris, France, enabling undergraduate and graduate students to study University of London ratified French Studies degrees in France. From September 2016, Queen Mary took over the functions provided by Royal Holloway and all students are now considered registered students of Queen Mary.
Queen Mary provides academic guidance for the Global Master of Business Administration degree offered by the University of London's distance learning.
Queen Mary is a founding partner in UCLPartners, an academic health science centre located in London. Queen Mary joined UCLPartners in 2011.
Admissions
In terms of average UCAS points of entrants, Queen Mary ranked 32nd in Britain in 2014. The university gives offers of admission to 75.0% of its applicants, the 12th lowest amongst the Russell Group.
According to the 2017 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, approximately 12% of Queen Mary's undergraduates come from independent schools. In the 2016–17 academic year, the university had a domicile breakdown of 68:10:22 of UK:EU:non-EU students respectively with a female to male ratio of 54:46.
Rankings and reputation
National
Queen Mary ranks eighth in the UK in the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2016. Queen Mary ranks 13th in the U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities in the United Kingdom, and fifth in London. In Times Higher Education Best universities in the UK 2017, it has been ranked 15th. The Guardian ranks Queen Mary in the University league tables 2017 first for Media & Film Studies, second for Medicine in the UK, third in the UK for Dentistry, ninth for History in the UK, fifth for Law in the UK. The Complete University Guide 2019 ranks Queen Mary 38th overall.
In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF), which assesses the quality of research in UK higher education institutions, Queen Mary is ranked 19th by GPA and 21st for research power (the grade point average score of a university, multiplied by the full-time equivalent number of researchers submitted).
Queen Mary students feature in the top 10 in the UK for graduate starting salaries, according to The Times and Sunday Times University League Table 2016.
International
U.S. News & World Report 2022-23 ranked Queen Mary as 100th in the world. Similarly, QS World University Rankings 2022 ranked Queen Mary as 117th in the world. Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2021 ranked Queen Mary 110th in the world. Academic Ranking of World Universities 2020 ranks Queen Mary between 201 and 300 in the world. The university was ranked 51st in the world in the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2018.
Queen Mary was ranked 11th in Europe in the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2016. The university was ranked 47th in the 2017 U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities in Europe. 2017 Times Higher Education ranked Queen Mary equal 46th among European universities.
Subject specific
In 2019, QS World Universities ranked both the schools of Law and English Literature and Language 32nd in the world, with the schools of Geography, History, Linguistics and Medicine all making top 100. In 2020, Law at Queen Mary University of London was ranked 30th in the world and seventh in the UK.
The Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry has been ranked as the 15th best medical school in the UK by The Guardian and, globally, is ranked ninth by the QS World University Rankings.
According to Times Good University Guide 2020 strong subject areas for Queen Mary University are Dentistry (5), Medicine (8), Materials Technology (11) and Drama, Dance and Cinematics (17).
The Guardian in 2018 ranked the School of Law as third best in the UK.
Student life
Queen Mary Students' Union
Queen Mary Students' Union (QMSU) unites the various clubs and societies of Queen Mary. The union is based at the recently refurbished Students' Hub. The elected representatives within the union are made up of a president and five vice-presidents. The union mascot is a leopard called Mary. The union has a sub-division to represent students studying at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, called Barts and The London Students' Association.
SU facilities and publications
Qmotion (Gym/Fitness Centre)
Drapers Bar
Ground
The Learning Cafe
Infusion Shop
The Print (newspaper)
CUB (magazine)
Quest (radio)
Queen Mary Theatre Company
QMTV (television)
Students' Union Hub
The Students' Union Hub replaces the previous office called the Blomley Centre. It is named after a former president and VP Education, Laura Blomeley, who completed her term in office with terminal cancer. In remembrance of her commitment to QMSU, two key rooms in the new Students' Union Hub have been named after her.
The Student Union voted in 2023 to make its catering 100 per cent plant-based by the 2028-29 academic year. The catering will be 60 per cent plant-based for the 2023-24 year. The decision came in response to the UK-based Plant-Based Universities campaign.
Sports
The Merger Cup is a series of annual sporting fixtures played between Queen Mary and Barts and The London (BL) sports clubs. The event has taken place since the merger of the two institutions in 1995.
The results of a number of matches normally played on the same day are combined to determine the overall winner. Sporting fixtures include badminton, basketball, football, hockey, netball, rugby, squash, swimming, tennis and rowing.
In recent times Queen Mary have won the cup in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. 2009 saw the cup return to the medical school with a 9–7 victory over Queen Mary, but a close 10–9 win brought it back to Queen Mary in 2010. In 2011, Barts and The London were Merger Cup winners. In 2012 QM won with a 15–7 defeat of BL, QM were also victorious in 2013. In 2014 Barts dominated 29–24, winning most major sports in the process. In 2016, Barts won against Queen Mary 67–37.
The university has an alumni football club, Queen Mary College Old Boys FC, which was founded in 1989 and maintains close links with university. The club has three teams and competes in the Amateur Football Combination The club's 1st XI won four league titles in five seasons, including two league and London Old Boys Cup doubles
Student housing
Many Queen Mary students are accommodated in the college's own halls of residence or other accommodation; students are also eligible to apply for places in the University of London intercollegiate halls of residence, such as Connaught Hall.
Most students in college or university accommodation are first-year undergraduates or international students. The majority of second and third-year students and postgraduates find their own accommodation in the private sector.
Undergraduate
The college's Westfield Student Village, situated in the north-east corner of the Mile End Campus, has en-suite, self-catering housing for 1,195 students, staff and academic visitors in six contemporary buildings. A shop, laundrette, café bar, 200-seat restaurant and central reception (staffed 24 hours a day), and a communal area situated adjacent to the Regents canal, form part of the Village development. Rooms are arranged in flats and maisonettes housing between four and eleven students.
Undergraduate student housing at Queen Mary includes:
Albert Stern House – Located next to Ifor Evans at the western end of the main Queen Mary campus.
Beaumont Court – Housing for 167 first year, associate and foundation students in maisonettes and flats. Located opposite Sir France House and adjacent to Creed Court.
Sir Christopher France House – Situated on the bank of the Regents canal, flats in this building have full en-suite facilities.
Creed Court – Housing for 124 postgraduate students in 10 maisonettes and 12 flats. Located opposite Sir France House and adjacent to Beaumont Court.
Ifor Evans – Located at the western end of the campus.
Lindop House – A residential development situated directly opposite the Queens' Building. Housing for 74 first year undergraduate, mostly medics, and foundation students in single rooms in 11 six-person flats and 2 four-person flats.
Maurice Court – containing 12 maisonettes and 18 flats for up to 173 first year students. Located at the rear of Creed and Beaumont Courts and very close to Mile End Hospital.
Maynard & Varey Houses – Two buildings housing 200 first year undergraduate, associate and foundation students. Situated in Westfield Way at the eastern end of the Mile End campus directly opposite the college's Chemistry and IT Resource Centre.
Pooley House – Located at the far end of the campus, providing housing for 378 first year, associate and foundation students in 48 flats. The largest building in the village development.
Richard Feilden House – Housing for 200 first year, associate and foundation students. The Curve, a 200-seat restaurant is situated on the ground floor. Opened in 2007, it is the newest dwelling in the Village and is situated opposite the Joseph Priestley Building.
Postgraduate
Postgraduate student housing at Queen Mary includes:
Chapman, Chesney and Selincourt – Four residences situated in Westfield Way, at the eastern end of the Mile End campus adjacent to the Regents Canal. 94 single en-suite rooms for final year undergraduate and new postgraduate students
Dawson Hall – Located near Barbican tube station in the City of London and set around lawns and trees on the college's Charterhouse campus, close to St Bartholomew's Hospital. Provides single rooms for 207 medical and dental students and medical based postgraduates.
Floyer House – Houses 145 medical and dental students and medical based postgraduates, located close to The London Hospital and Dental Institute at the college's Whitechapel campus.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
Students from over 170 nationalities attend Queen Mary, approximately 41% of them from overseas. According to The Times' Good University Guide, in 2021-2, 77% of Queen Mary students came from a black or ethnic minority background; this is the highest proportion of any university in the Russell Group and in the top 5 of any UK institution of higher education. The Times also cites QM as having one of the narrowest (i.e. best) black achievement gaps among UK institutions.
In 2008, in recognition of the institution's commitment to advancing gender equality and diversity, the university achieved an Athena SWAN bronze award. This was elevated to a silver award in 2017, and the accreditation was renewed in 2022.
In 2019, the Queen Mary's Diversity and Inclusion Manager resigned, citing a "tick-box mentality" to equality, diversity and inclusion, as well as a "toxic" working environment that prioritised accolades over meaningful improvement; the departing manager further declared that Queen Mary was "institutionally racist." Other academics have raised grievances regarding incidents of racism. In January 2020, a former lecturer who had brought the university to an employment tribunal for direct racial and gender discrimination and harassment as a continuing act had her case dismissed on the basis that the alleged incidents had occurred after statutory time limits had expired.
Queen Mary's UCU branch established an anti-racism working group in 2020 to “focus attention on institutional racism at Queen Mary University of London, but also to address questions of equality and diversity within the Union itself.”
QMUL and Leopold II of Belgium
In 2016, the university authorities removed plaques commemorating two visits by Leopold II of Belgium to the university site in 1887. Leopold, a cousin of Queen Victoria, had no links to Queen Mary other than a visit in April 1887 to Mile End and a subsequent visit in June 1887 to lay the foundation stone of the Octagon library, where the plaques were sited. The brutal and exploitative nature of Leopold's rule over the Congo Free State between 1885 and 1908, and his commemoration at Queen Mary, came under renewed scrutiny as of institutional links with colonial repression were re-evaluated in the wake of the global attention paid to the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. However, the suitability of any commemoration of Leopold on university property had been raised as early as 2013. In June 2016, the university's Pan-African society launched a petition for the removal of the plaques that celebrated a “genocidal colonialist” and were offensive to students from ethnic minority backgrounds. The society argued that their removal would help those students feel more “welcome, respected and integrated”. By December 2016, the plaques had been removed from public view "as part of ongoing refurbishment work.” This attracted criticism from academics at other institutions who called the decision a "whitewashing" of history that "suggests a fear within the university authorities... of attracting negative attention."
UCU Strikes and Snitch Forms
In 2022, as part of ongoing national strikes by the University and College Union, more than 100 staff at Queen Mary University of London taking part in a national marking boycott were withheld 100% of their wages for 21 days. Several other universities had threatened to dock full pay for action short of a strike, however Queen Mary University of London was the only institution to follow through on the threat. This led to the university being branded the worst university employer in the UK.
In the 2022/23 academic year, while strike action was continuing, the university continued to crack down and became the first university in the UK to implement a 'student snitch form'. Students were encouraged to report striking staff, with threats of docking 39 days pay for those who did not reschedule missed teaching. Several senior academics resigned from the university in response to this action, citing a lack of trust leading to unbearable working conditions. Throughout this process, students and staff were sent very different messages in email updates by principal Colin Bailey, leading to increased division within the university.
Notable people
Notable alumni
Notable academics
Nobel laureates
To date, nine Nobel laureates have been either students, or academics, at Queen Mary and its historically preceding institutions.
Principals
To date, Queen Mary has had a total of 22 principals (11 of Westfield College, eight of Queen Mary College, and three since the merger of Queen Mary, Westfield, Barts, and The London).
The current principal is Colin Bailey, a structural engineer, who became Principal in September 2017.
See also
Armorial of UK universities
List of universities in the UK
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Queen Mary Students' Union website
Queen Mary University of London student lists
Queen Mary University of London military personnel,1914–1918
University of London
Russell Group
Universities and colleges established in 1885
1885 establishments in England
Grade II listed educational buildings
Universities UK |
422481 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy%20equivalence | Mass–energy equivalence | In physics, mass–energy equivalence is the relationship between mass and energy in a system's rest frame, where the two quantities differ only by a multiplicative constant and the units of measurement. The principle is described by the physicist Albert Einstein's formula: . In a reference frame where the system is moving, its relativistic energy and relativistic mass (instead of rest mass) obey the same formula.
The formula defines the energy of a particle in its rest frame as the product of mass () with the speed of light squared (). Because the speed of light is a large number in everyday units (approximately ), the formula implies that a small amount of "rest mass", measured when the system is at rest, corresponds to an enormous amount of energy, which is independent of the composition of the matter.
Rest mass, also called invariant mass, is a fundamental physical property that is independent of momentum, even at extreme speeds approaching the speed of light. Its value is the same in all inertial frames of reference. Massless particles such as photons have zero invariant mass, but massless free particles have both momentum and energy.
The equivalence principle implies that when energy is lost in chemical reactions, nuclear reactions, and other energy transformations, the system will also lose a corresponding amount of mass. The energy, and mass, can be released to the environment as radiant energy, such as light, or as thermal energy. The principle is fundamental to many fields of physics, including nuclear and particle physics.
Mass–energy equivalence arose from special relativity as a paradox described by the French polymath Henri Poincaré (1854–1912). Einstein was the first to propose the equivalence of mass and energy as a general principle and a consequence of the symmetries of space and time. The principle first appeared in "Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy-content?", one of his annus mirabilis papers, published on 21 November 1905. The formula and its relationship to momentum, as described by the energy–momentum relation, were later developed by other physicists.
Description
Mass–energy equivalence states that all objects having mass, or massive objects, have a corresponding intrinsic energy, even when they are stationary. In the rest frame of an object, where by definition it is motionless and so has no momentum, the mass and energy are equal or they differ only by a constant factor, the speed of light squared (). In Newtonian mechanics, a motionless body has no kinetic energy, and it may or may not have other amounts of internal stored energy, like chemical energy or thermal energy, in addition to any potential energy it may have from its position in a field of force. These energies tend to be much smaller than the mass of the object multiplied by , which is on the order of 1017 joules for a mass of one kilogram. Due to this principle, the mass of the atoms that come out of a nuclear reaction is less than the mass of the atoms that go in, and the difference in mass shows up as heat and light with the same equivalent energy as the difference. In analyzing these explosions, Einstein's formula can be used with as the energy released (removed), and as the change in mass.
In relativity, all the energy that moves with an object (i.e., the energy as measured in the object's rest frame) contributes to the total mass of the body, which measures how much it resists acceleration. If an isolated box of ideal mirrors could contain light, the individually massless photons would contribute to the total mass of the box by the amount equal to their energy divided by . For an observer in the rest frame, removing energy is the same as removing mass and the formula indicates how much mass is lost when energy is removed. In the same way, when any energy is added to an isolated system, the increase in the mass is equal to the added energy divided by .
Mass in special relativity
An object moves at different speeds in different frames of reference, depending on the motion of the observer. This implies the kinetic energy, in both Newtonian mechanics and relativity, is 'frame dependent', so that the amount of relativistic energy that an object is measured to have depends on the observer. The relativistic mass of an object is given by the relativistic energy divided by . Because the relativistic mass is exactly proportional to the relativistic energy, relativistic mass and relativistic energy are nearly synonymous; the only difference between them is the units. The rest mass or invariant mass of an object is defined as the mass an object has in its rest frame, when it is not moving with respect to the observer. Physicists typically use the term mass, though experiments have shown an object's gravitational mass depends on its total energy and not just its rest mass. The rest mass is the same for all inertial frames, as it is independent of the motion of the observer, it is the smallest possible value of the relativistic mass of the object. Because of the attraction between components of a system, which results in potential energy, the rest mass is almost never additive; in general, the mass of an object is not the sum of the masses of its parts. The rest mass of an object is the total energy of all the parts, including kinetic energy, as observed from the center of momentum frame, and potential energy. The masses add up only if the constituents are at rest (as observed from the center of momentum frame) and do not attract or repel, so that they do not have any extra kinetic or potential energy. Massless particles are particles with no rest mass, and therefore have no intrinsic energy; their energy is due only to their momentum.
Relativistic mass
Relativistic mass depends on the motion of the object, so that different observers in relative motion see different values for it. The relativistic mass of a moving object is larger than the relativistic mass of an object at rest, because a moving object has kinetic energy. If the object moves slowly, the relativistic mass is nearly equal to the rest mass and both are nearly equal to the classical inertial mass (as it appears in Newton's laws of motion). If the object moves quickly, the relativistic mass is greater than the rest mass by an amount equal to the mass associated with the kinetic energy of the object. Massless particles also have relativistic mass derived from their kinetic energy, equal to their relativistic energy divided by , or . The speed of light is one in a system where length and time are measured in natural units and the relativistic mass and energy would be equal in value and dimension. As it is just another name for the energy, the use of the term relativistic mass is redundant and physicists generally reserve mass to refer to rest mass, or invariant mass, as opposed to relativistic mass. A consequence of this terminology is that the mass is not conserved in special relativity, whereas the conservation of momentum and conservation of energy are both fundamental laws.
Conservation of mass and energy
The conservation of energy is a universal principle in physics and holds for any interaction, along with the conservation of momentum. The classical conservation of mass, in contrast, is violated in certain relativistic settings. This concept has been experimentally proven in a number of ways, including the conversion of mass into kinetic energy in nuclear reactions and other interactions between elementary particles. While modern physics has discarded the expression 'conservation of mass', in older terminology a relativistic mass can also be defined to be equivalent to the energy of a moving system, allowing for a conservation of relativistic mass. Mass conservation breaks down when the energy associated with the mass of a particle is converted into other forms of energy, such as kinetic energy, thermal energy, or radiant energy. Similarly, kinetic or radiant energy can be used to create particles that have mass, always conserving the total energy and momentum.
Massless particles
Massless particles have zero rest mass. The Planck–Einstein relation for the energy for photons is given by the equation , where is the Planck constant and is the photon frequency. This frequency and thus the relativistic energy are frame-dependent. If an observer runs away from a photon in the direction the photon travels from a source, and it catches up with the observer, the observer sees it as having less energy than it had at the source. The faster the observer is traveling with regard to the source when the photon catches up, the less energy the photon would be seen to have. As an observer approaches the speed of light with regard to the source, the redshift of the photon increases, according to the relativistic Doppler effect. The energy of the photon is reduced and as the wavelength becomes arbitrarily large, the photon's energy approaches zero, because of the massless nature of photons, which does not permit any intrinsic energy.
Composite systems
For closed systems made up of many parts, like an atomic nucleus, planet, or star, the relativistic energy is given by the sum of the relativistic energies of each of the parts, because energies are additive in these systems. If a system is bound by attractive forces, and the energy gained in excess of the work done is removed from the system, then mass is lost with this removed energy. The mass of an atomic nucleus is less than the total mass of the protons and neutrons that make it up. This mass decrease is also equivalent to the energy required to break up the nucleus into individual protons and neutrons. This effect can be understood by looking at the potential energy of the individual components. The individual particles have a force attracting them together, and forcing them apart increases the potential energy of the particles in the same way that lifting an object up on earth does. This energy is equal to the work required to split the particles apart. The mass of the Solar System is slightly less than the sum of its individual masses.
For an isolated system of particles moving in different directions, the invariant mass of the system is the analog of the rest mass, and is the same for all observers, even those in relative motion. It is defined as the total energy (divided by ) in the center of momentum frame. The center of momentum frame is defined so that the system has zero total momentum; the term center of mass frame is also sometimes used, where the center of mass frame is a special case of the center of momentum frame where the center of mass is put at the origin. A simple example of an object with moving parts but zero total momentum is a container of gas. In this case, the mass of the container is given by its total energy (including the kinetic energy of the gas molecules), since the system's total energy and invariant mass are the same in any reference frame where the momentum is zero, and such a reference frame is also the only frame in which the object can be weighed. In a similar way, the theory of special relativity posits that the thermal energy in all objects, including solids, contributes to their total masses, even though this energy is present as the kinetic and potential energies of the atoms in the object, and it (in a similar way to the gas) is not seen in the rest masses of the atoms that make up the object. Similarly, even photons, if trapped in an isolated container, would contribute their energy to the mass of the container. Such extra mass, in theory, could be weighed in the same way as any other type of rest mass, even though individually photons have no rest mass. The property that trapped energy in any form adds weighable mass to systems that have no net momentum is one of the consequences of relativity. It has no counterpart in classical Newtonian physics, where energy never exhibits weighable mass.
Relation to gravity
Physics has two concepts of mass, the gravitational mass and the inertial mass. The gravitational mass is the quantity that determines the strength of the gravitational field generated by an object, as well as the gravitational force acting on the object when it is immersed in a gravitational field produced by other bodies. The inertial mass, on the other hand, quantifies how much an object accelerates if a given force is applied to it. The mass–energy equivalence in special relativity refers to the inertial mass. However, already in the context of Newtonian gravity, the weak equivalence principle is postulated: the gravitational and the inertial mass of every object are the same. Thus, the mass–energy equivalence, combined with the weak equivalence principle, results in the prediction that all forms of energy contribute to the gravitational field generated by an object. This observation is one of the pillars of the general theory of relativity.
The prediction that all forms of energy interact gravitationally has been subject to experimental tests. One of the first observations testing this prediction, called the Eddington experiment, was made during the Solar eclipse of May 29, 1919. During the solar eclipse, the English astronomer and physicist Arthur Eddington observed that the light from stars passing close to the Sun was bent. The effect is due to the gravitational attraction of light by the Sun. The observation confirmed that the energy carried by light indeed is equivalent to a gravitational mass. Another seminal experiment, the Pound–Rebka experiment, was performed in 1960. In this test a beam of light was emitted from the top of a tower and detected at the bottom. The frequency of the light detected was higher than the light emitted. This result confirms that the energy of photons increases when they fall in the gravitational field of the Earth. The energy, and therefore the gravitational mass, of photons is proportional to their frequency as stated by the Planck's relation.
Efficiency
In some reactions, matter particles can be destroyed and their associated energy released to the environment as other forms of energy, such as light and heat. One example of such a conversion takes place in elementary particle interactions, where the rest energy is transformed into kinetic energy. Such conversions between types of energy happen in nuclear weapons, in which the protons and neutrons in atomic nuclei lose a small fraction of their original mass, though the mass lost is not due to the destruction of any smaller constituents. Nuclear fission allows a tiny fraction of the energy associated with the mass to be converted into usable energy such as radiation; in the decay of the uranium, for instance, about 0.1% of the mass of the original atom is lost. In theory, it should be possible to destroy matter and convert all of the rest-energy associated with matter into heat and light, but none of the theoretically known methods are practical. One way to harness all the energy associated with mass is to annihilate matter with antimatter. Antimatter is rare in our universe, however, and the known mechanisms of production require more usable energy than would be released in annihilation. CERN estimated in 2011 that over a billion times more energy is required to make and store antimatter than could be released in its annihilation.
As most of the mass which comprises ordinary objects resides in protons and neutrons, converting all the energy of ordinary matter into more useful forms requires that the protons and neutrons be converted to lighter particles, or particles with no mass at all. In the Standard Model of particle physics, the number of protons plus neutrons is nearly exactly conserved. Despite this, Gerard 't Hooft showed that there is a process that converts protons and neutrons to antielectrons and neutrinos. This is the weak SU(2) instanton proposed by the physicists Alexander Belavin, Alexander Markovich Polyakov, Albert Schwarz, and Yu. S. Tyupkin. This process, can in principle destroy matter and convert all the energy of matter into neutrinos and usable energy, but it is normally extraordinarily slow. It was later shown that the process occurs rapidly at extremely high temperatures that would only have been reached shortly after the Big Bang.
Many extensions of the standard model contain magnetic monopoles, and in some models of grand unification, these monopoles catalyze proton decay, a process known as the Callan–Rubakov effect. This process would be an efficient mass–energy conversion at ordinary temperatures, but it requires making monopoles and anti-monopoles, whose production is expected to be inefficient. Another method of completely annihilating matter uses the gravitational field of black holes. The British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking theorized it is possible to throw matter into a black hole and use the emitted heat to generate power. According to the theory of Hawking radiation, however, larger black holes radiate less than smaller ones, so that usable power can only be produced by small black holes.
Extension for systems in motion
Unlike a system's energy in an inertial frame, the relativistic energy () of a system depends on both the rest mass () and the total momentum of the system. The extension of Einstein's equation to these systems is given by:
or
where the term represents the square of the Euclidean norm (total vector length) of the various momentum vectors in the system, which reduces to the square of the simple momentum magnitude, if only a single particle is considered. This equation is called the energy–momentum relation and reduces to when the momentum term is zero. For photons where , the equation reduces to .
Low-speed expansion
Using the Lorentz factor, , the energy–momentum can be rewritten as and expanded as a power series:
For speeds much smaller than the speed of light, higher-order terms in this expression get smaller and smaller because is small. For low speeds, all but the first two terms can be ignored:
In classical mechanics, both the term and the high-speed corrections are ignored. The initial value of the energy is arbitrary, as only the change in energy can be measured and so the term is ignored in classical physics. While the higher-order terms become important at higher speeds, the Newtonian equation is a highly accurate low-speed approximation; adding in the third term yields:
.
The difference between the two approximations is given by , a number very small for everyday objects. In 2018 NASA announced the Parker Solar Probe was the fastest ever, with a speed of . The difference between the approximations for the Parker Solar Probe in 2018 is , which accounts for an energy correction of four parts per hundred million. The gravitational constant, in contrast, has a standard relative uncertainty of about .
Applications
Application to nuclear physics
The nuclear binding energy is the minimum energy that is required to disassemble the nucleus of an atom into its component parts. The mass of an atom is less than the sum of the masses of its constituents due to the attraction of the strong nuclear force. The difference between the two masses is called the mass defect and is related to the binding energy through Einstein's formula. The principle is used in modeling nuclear fission reactions and it implies a great amount of energy can be released by the nuclear fission chain reactions used in both nuclear weapons and nuclear power.
A water molecule weighs a little less than two free hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom. The minuscule mass difference is the energy needed to split the molecule into three individual atoms (divided by ), which was given off as heat when the molecule formed (this heat had mass). Similarly, a stick of dynamite in theory weighs a little bit more than the fragments after the explosion; in this case the mass difference is the energy and heat that is released when the dynamite explodes. Such a change in mass may only happen when the system is open, and the energy and mass are allowed to escape. Thus, if a stick of dynamite is blown up in a hermetically sealed chamber, the mass of the chamber and fragments, the heat, sound, and light would still be equal to the original mass of the chamber and dynamite. If sitting on a scale, the weight and mass would not change. This would in theory also happen even with a nuclear bomb, if it could be kept in an ideal box of infinite strength, which did not rupture or pass radiation. Thus, a 21.5 kiloton () nuclear bomb produces about one gram of heat and electromagnetic radiation, but the mass of this energy would not be detectable in an exploded bomb in an ideal box sitting on a scale; instead, the contents of the box would be heated to millions of degrees without changing total mass and weight. If a transparent window passing only electromagnetic radiation were opened in such an ideal box after the explosion, and a beam of X-rays and other lower-energy light allowed to escape the box, it would eventually be found to weigh one gram less than it had before the explosion. This weight loss and mass loss would happen as the box was cooled by this process, to room temperature. However, any surrounding mass that absorbed the X-rays (and other "heat") would gain this gram of mass from the resulting heating, thus, in this case, the mass "loss" would represent merely its relocation.
Practical examples
Einstein used the centimetre–gram–second system of units (cgs), but the formula is independent of the system of units. In natural units, the numerical value of the speed of light is set to equal 1, and the formula expresses an equality of numerical values: . In the SI system (expressing the ratio in joules per kilogram using the value of in metres per second):
(≈ 9.0 × 1016 joules per kilogram).
So the energy equivalent of one kilogram of mass is
89.9 petajoules
25.0 billion kilowatt-hours (≈ 25,000 GW·h)
21.5 trillion kilocalories (≈ 21 Pcal)
85.2 trillion BTUs
0.0852 quads
or the energy released by combustion of the following:
21 500 kilotons of TNT-equivalent energy (≈ 21 Mt)
litres or US gallons of automotive gasoline
Any time energy is released, the process can be evaluated from an perspective. For instance, the "Gadget"-style bomb used in the Trinity test and the bombing of Nagasaki had an explosive yield equivalent to 21 kt of TNT. About 1 kg of the approximately 6.15 kg of plutonium in each of these bombs fissioned into lighter elements totaling almost exactly one gram less, after cooling. The electromagnetic radiation and kinetic energy (thermal and blast energy) released in this explosion carried the missing gram of mass.
Whenever energy is added to a system, the system gains mass, as shown when the equation is rearranged:
A spring's mass increases whenever it is put into compression or tension. Its mass increase arises from the increased potential energy stored within it, which is bound in the stretched chemical (electron) bonds linking the atoms within the spring.
Raising the temperature of an object (increasing its thermal energy) increases its mass. For example, consider the world's primary mass standard for the kilogram, made of platinum and iridium. If its temperature is allowed to change by 1 °C, its mass changes by 1.5 picograms (1 pg = ).
A spinning ball has greater mass than when it is not spinning. Its increase of mass is exactly the equivalent of the mass of energy of rotation, which is itself the sum of the kinetic energies of all the moving parts of the ball. For example, the Earth itself is more massive due to its rotation, than it would be with no rotation. The rotational energy of the Earth is greater than 1024 Joules, which is over 107 kg.
History
While Einstein was the first to have correctly deduced the mass–energy equivalence formula, he was not the first to have related energy with mass, though nearly all previous authors thought that the energy that contributes to mass comes only from electromagnetic fields. Once discovered, Einstein's formula was initially written in many different notations, and its interpretation and justification was further developed in several steps.
Developments prior to Einstein
Eighteenth century theories on the correlation of mass and energy included that devised by the English scientist Isaac Newton in 1717, who speculated that light particles and matter particles were interconvertible in "Query 30" of the Opticks, where he asks: "Are not the gross bodies and light convertible into one another, and may not bodies receive much of their activity from the particles of light which enter their composition?" Swedish scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg, in his Principia of 1734 theorized that all matter is ultimately composed of dimensionless points of "pure and total motion". He described this motion as being without force, direction or speed, but having the potential for force, direction and speed everywhere within it.
During the nineteenth century there were several speculative attempts to show that mass and energy were proportional in various ether theories. In 1873 the Russian physicist and mathematician Nikolay Umov pointed out a relation between mass and energy for ether in the form of , where . The writings of the English engineer Samuel Tolver Preston, and a 1903 paper by the Italian industrialist and geologist Olinto De Pretto, presented a mass–energy relation. Italian mathematician and math historian Umberto Bartocci observed that there were only three degrees of separation linking De Pretto to Einstein, concluding that Einstein was probably aware of De Pretto's work. Preston and De Pretto, following physicist Georges-Louis Le Sage, imagined that the universe was filled with an ether of tiny particles that always move at speed . Each of these particles has a kinetic energy of up to a small numerical factor. The nonrelativistic kinetic energy formula did not always include the traditional factor of , since German polymath Gottfried Leibniz introduced kinetic energy without it, and the is largely conventional in prerelativistic physics. By assuming that every particle has a mass that is the sum of the masses of the ether particles, the authors concluded that all matter contains an amount of kinetic energy either given by or depending on the convention. A particle ether was usually considered unacceptably speculative science at the time, and since these authors did not formulate relativity, their reasoning is completely different from that of Einstein, who used relativity to change frames.
In 1905, and independent of Einstein, French polymath Gustave Le Bon speculated that atoms could release large amounts of latent energy, reasoning from an all-encompassing qualitative philosophy of physics.
Electromagnetic mass
There were many attempts in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century—like those of British physicists J. J. Thomson in 1881 and Oliver Heaviside in 1889, and George Frederick Charles Searle in 1897, German physicists Wilhelm Wien in 1900 and Max Abraham in 1902, and the Dutch physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz in 1904—to understand how the mass of a charged object depends on the electrostatic field. This concept was called electromagnetic mass, and was considered as being dependent on velocity and direction as well. Lorentz in 1904 gave the following expressions for longitudinal and transverse electromagnetic mass:
,
where
Another way of deriving a type of electromagnetic mass was based on the concept of radiation pressure. In 1900, French polymath Henri Poincaré associated electromagnetic radiation energy with a "fictitious fluid" having momentum and mass
By that, Poincaré tried to save the center of mass theorem in Lorentz's theory, though his treatment led to radiation paradoxes.
Austrian physicist Friedrich Hasenöhrl showed in 1904 that electromagnetic cavity radiation contributes the "apparent mass"
to the cavity's mass. He argued that this implies mass dependence on temperature as well.
Einstein: mass–energy equivalence
Einstein did not write the exact formula in his 1905 Annus Mirabilis paper "Does the Inertia of an object Depend Upon Its Energy Content?"; rather, the paper states that if a body gives off the energy in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by . This formulation relates only a change in mass to a change in energy without requiring the absolute relationship. The relationship convinced him that mass and energy can be seen as two names for the same underlying, conserved physical quantity. He has stated that the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of mass are "one and the same". Einstein elaborated in a 1946 essay that "the principle of the conservation of mass… proved inadequate in the face of the special theory of relativity. It was therefore merged with the energy conservation principle—just as, about 60 years before, the principle of the conservation of mechanical energy had been combined with the principle of the conservation of heat [thermal energy]. We might say that the principle of the conservation of energy, having previously swallowed up that of the conservation of heat, now proceeded to swallow that of the conservation of mass—and holds the field alone."
Mass–velocity relationship
In developing special relativity, Einstein found that the kinetic energy of a moving body is
with the velocity, the rest mass, and the Lorentz factor.
He included the second term on the right to make sure that for small velocities the energy would be the same as in classical mechanics, thus satisfying the correspondence principle:
Without this second term, there would be an additional contribution in the energy when the particle is not moving.
Einsteins's view on mass
Einstein, following Lorentz and Abraham, used velocity- and direction-dependent mass concepts in his 1905 electrodynamics paper and in another paper in 1906. In Einstein's first 1905 paper on , he treated as what would now be called the rest mass, and it has been noted that in his later years he did not like the idea of "relativistic mass".
In older physics terminology, relativistic energy is used in lieu of relativistic mass and the term "mass" is reserved for the rest mass. Historically, there has been considerable debate over the use of the concept of "relativistic mass" and the connection of "mass" in relativity to "mass" in Newtonian dynamics. One view is that only rest mass is a viable concept and is a property of the particle; while relativistic mass is a conglomeration of particle properties and properties of spacetime. Another view, attributed to Norwegian physicist Kjell Vøyenli, is that the Newtonian concept of mass as a particle property and the relativistic concept of mass have to be viewed as embedded in their own theories and as having no precise connection.
Einstein's 1905 derivation
Already in his relativity paper "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies", Einstein derived the correct expression for the kinetic energy of particles:
.
Now the question remained open as to which formulation applies to bodies at rest. This was tackled by Einstein in his paper "Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy content?", one of his Annus Mirabilis papers. Here, Einstein used to represent the speed of light in vacuum and to represent the energy lost by a body in the form of radiation. Consequently, the equation was not originally written as a formula but as a sentence in German saying that "if a body gives off the energy in the form of radiation, its mass diminishes by ." A remark placed above it informed that the equation was approximated by neglecting "magnitudes of fourth and higher orders" of a series expansion. Einstein used a body emitting two light pulses in opposite directions, having energies of before and after the emission as seen in its rest frame. As seen from a moving frame, this becomes and . Einstein obtained, in modern notation:
.
He then argued that can only differ from the kinetic energy by an additive constant, which gives
.
Neglecting effects higher than third order in after a Taylor series expansion of the right side of this yields:
Einstein concluded that the emission reduces the body's mass by , and that the mass of a body is a measure of its energy content.
The correctness of Einstein's 1905 derivation of was criticized by German theoretical physicist Max Planck in 1907, who argued that it is only valid to first approximation. Another criticism was formulated by American physicist Herbert Ives in 1952 and the Israeli physicist Max Jammer in 1961, asserting that Einstein's derivation is based on begging the question. Other scholars, such as American and Chilean philosophers John Stachel and Roberto Torretti, have argued that Ives' criticism was wrong, and that Einstein's derivation was correct. American physics writer Hans Ohanian, in 2008, agreed with Stachel/Torretti's criticism of Ives, though he argued that Einstein's derivation was wrong for other reasons.
Relativistic center-of-mass theorem of 1906
Like Poincaré, Einstein concluded in 1906 that the inertia of electromagnetic energy is a necessary condition for the center-of-mass theorem to hold. On this occasion, Einstein referred to Poincaré's 1900 paper and wrote: "Although the merely formal considerations, which we will need for the proof, are already mostly contained in a work by H. Poincaré2, for the sake of clarity I will not rely on that work." In Einstein's more physical, as opposed to formal or mathematical, point of view, there was no need for fictitious masses. He could avoid the perpetual motion problem because, on the basis of the mass–energy equivalence, he could show that the transport of inertia that accompanies the emission and absorption of radiation solves the problem. Poincaré's rejection of the principle of action–reaction can be avoided through Einstein's , because mass conservation appears as a special case of the energy conservation law.
Further developments
There were several further developments in the first decade of the twentieth century. In May 1907, Einstein explained that the expression for energy of a moving mass point assumes the simplest form when its expression for the state of rest is chosen to be (where is the mass), which is in agreement with the "principle of the equivalence of mass and energy". In addition, Einstein used the formula , with being the energy of a system of mass points, to describe the energy and mass increase of that system when the velocity of the differently moving mass points is increased. Max Planck rewrote Einstein's mass–energy relationship as in June 1907, where is the pressure and the volume to express the relation between mass, its latent energy, and thermodynamic energy within the body. Subsequently, in October 1907, this was rewritten as and given a quantum interpretation by German physicist Johannes Stark, who assumed its validity and correctness. In December 1907, Einstein expressed the equivalence in the form and concluded: "A mass is equivalent, as regards inertia, to a quantity of energy . […] It appears far more natural to consider every inertial mass as a store of energy." American physical chemists Gilbert N. Lewis and Richard C. Tolman used two variations of the formula in 1909: and , with being the relativistic energy (the energy of an object when the object is moving), is the rest energy (the energy when not moving), is the relativistic mass (the rest mass and the extra mass gained when moving), and is the rest mass. The same relations in different notation were used by Lorentz in 1913 and 1914, though he placed the energy on the left-hand side: and , with being the total energy (rest energy plus kinetic energy) of a moving material point, its rest energy, the relativistic mass, and the invariant mass.
In 1911, German physicist Max von Laue gave a more comprehensive proof of from the stress–energy tensor, which was later generalized by German mathematician Felix Klein in 1918.
Einstein returned to the topic once again after World War II and this time he wrote in the title of his article intended as an explanation for a general reader by analogy.
Alternative version
An alternative version of Einstein's thought experiment was proposed by American theoretical physicist Fritz Rohrlich in 1990, who based his reasoning on the Doppler effect. Like Einstein, he considered a body at rest with mass . If the body is examined in a frame moving with nonrelativistic velocity , it is no longer at rest and in the moving frame it has momentum . Then he supposed the body emits two pulses of light to the left and to the right, each carrying an equal amount of energy . In its rest frame, the object remains at rest after the emission since the two beams are equal in strength and carry opposite momentum. However, if the same process is considered in a frame that moves with velocity to the left, the pulse moving to the left is redshifted, while the pulse moving to the right is blue shifted. The blue light carries more momentum than the red light, so that the momentum of the light in the moving frame is not balanced: the light is carrying some net momentum to the right. The object has not changed its velocity before or after the emission. Yet in this frame it has lost some right-momentum to the light. The only way it could have lost momentum is by losing mass. This also solves Poincaré's radiation paradox. The velocity is small, so the right-moving light is blueshifted by an amount equal to the nonrelativistic Doppler shift factor . The momentum of the light is its energy divided by , and it is increased by a factor of . So the right-moving light is carrying an extra momentum given by:
The left-moving light carries a little less momentum, by the same amount . So the total right-momentum in both light pulses is twice . This is the right-momentum that the object lost.
The momentum of the object in the moving frame after the emission is reduced to this amount:
So the change in the object's mass is equal to the total energy lost divided by . Since any emission of energy can be carried out by a two-step process, where first the energy is emitted as light and then the light is converted to some other form of energy, any emission of energy is accompanied by a loss of mass. Similarly, by considering absorption, a gain in energy is accompanied by a gain in mass.
Radioactivity and nuclear energy
It was quickly noted after the discovery of radioactivity in 1897 that the total energy due to radioactive processes is about one million times greater than that involved in any known molecular change, raising the question of where the energy comes from. After eliminating the idea of absorption and emission of some sort of Lesagian ether particles, the existence of a huge amount of latent energy, stored within matter, was proposed by New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford and British radiochemist Frederick Soddy in 1903. Rutherford also suggested that this internal energy is stored within normal matter as well. He went on to speculate in 1904: "If it were ever found possible to control at will the rate of disintegration of the radio-elements, an enormous amount of energy could be obtained from a small quantity of matter."
Einstein's equation does not explain the large energies released in radioactive decay, but can be used to quantify them. The theoretical explanation for radioactive decay is given by the nuclear forces responsible for holding atoms together, though these forces were still unknown in 1905. The enormous energy released from radioactive decay had previously been measured by Rutherford and was much more easily measured than the small change in the gross mass of materials as a result. Einstein's equation, by theory, can give these energies by measuring mass differences before and after reactions, but in practice, these mass differences in 1905 were still too small to be measured in bulk. Prior to this, the ease of measuring radioactive decay energies with a calorimeter was thought possibly likely to allow measurement of changes in mass difference, as a check on Einstein's equation itself. Einstein mentions in his 1905 paper that mass–energy equivalence might perhaps be tested with radioactive decay, which was known by then to release enough energy to possibly be "weighed," when missing from the system. However, radioactivity seemed to proceed at its own unalterable pace, and even when simple nuclear reactions became possible using proton bombardment, the idea that these great amounts of usable energy could be liberated at will with any practicality, proved difficult to substantiate. Rutherford was reported in 1933 to have declared that this energy could not be exploited efficiently: "Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of the atom is talking moonshine."
This outlook changed dramatically in 1932 with the discovery of the neutron and its mass, allowing mass differences for single nuclides and their reactions to be calculated directly, and compared with the sum of masses for the particles that made up their composition. In 1933, the energy released from the reaction of lithium-7 plus protons giving rise to two alpha particles, allowed Einstein's equation to be tested to an error of ±0.5%. However, scientists still did not see such reactions as a practical source of power, due to the energy cost of accelerating reaction particles. After the very public demonstration of huge energies released from nuclear fission after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the equation became directly linked in the public eye with the power and peril of nuclear weapons. The equation was featured on page 2 of the Smyth Report, the official 1945 release by the US government on the development of the atomic bomb, and by 1946 the equation was linked closely enough with Einstein's work that the cover of Time magazine prominently featured a picture of Einstein next to an image of a mushroom cloud emblazoned with the equation. Einstein himself had only a minor role in the Manhattan Project: he had cosigned a letter to the U.S. president in 1939 urging funding for research into atomic energy, warning that an atomic bomb was theoretically possible. The letter persuaded Roosevelt to devote a significant portion of the wartime budget to atomic research. Without a security clearance, Einstein's only scientific contribution was an analysis of an isotope separation method in theoretical terms. It was inconsequential, on account of Einstein not being given sufficient information to fully work on the problem.
While is useful for understanding the amount of energy potentially released in a fission reaction, it was not strictly necessary to develop the weapon, once the fission process was known, and its energy measured at 200 MeV (which was directly possible, using a quantitative Geiger counter, at that time). The physicist and Manhattan Project participant Robert Serber noted that somehow "the popular notion took hold long ago that Einstein's theory of relativity, in particular his famous equation , plays some essential role in the theory of fission. Einstein had a part in alerting the United States government to the possibility of building an atomic bomb, but his theory of relativity is not required in discussing fission. The theory of fission is what physicists call a non-relativistic theory, meaning that relativistic effects are too small to affect the dynamics of the fission process significantly." There are other views on the equation's importance to nuclear reactions. In late 1938, the Austrian-Swedish and British physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch—while on a winter walk during which they solved the meaning of Hahn's experimental results and introduced the idea that would be called atomic fission—directly used Einstein's equation to help them understand the quantitative energetics of the reaction that overcame the "surface tension-like" forces that hold the nucleus together, and allowed the fission fragments to separate to a configuration from which their charges could force them into an energetic fission. To do this, they used packing fraction, or nuclear binding energy values for elements. These, together with use of allowed them to realize on the spot that the basic fission process was energetically possible.
Einstein's equation written
According to the Einstein Papers Project at the California Institute of Technology and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, there remain only four known copies of this equation as written by Einstein. One of these is a letter written in German to Ludwik Silberstein, which was in Silberstein's archives, and sold at auction for $1.2 million, RR Auction of Boston, Massachusetts said on May 21, 2021.
See also
Notes
References
External links
Einstein on the Inertia of Energy – MathPages
Einstein-on film explaining a mass energy equivalence
Mass and Energy – Conversations About Science with Theoretical Physicist Matt Strassler
The Equivalence of Mass and Energy – Entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
1905 introductions
1905 in science
1905 in Germany
Albert Einstein
Energy (physics)
Equations
Mass
Special relativity |
422504 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramakrishna | Ramakrishna | Ramakrishna Paramahansa (; , 18 February 1836 – 16 August 1886), also spelled Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, born Gadadhar Chattopadhay or Chatterjee was an Indian Hindu mystic and spiritual leader. After adhering to various religious practices from the Hindu traditions of Vaishnavism, Tantra, and Advaita Vedanta, as well as from Islam and Christianity, Ramakrishna proclaimed the world's various religions as "so many paths to reach one and the same goal", thus validating the essential unity of religions. His parable-based teachings espoused the ultimate unity of various religions as a means to enable the realization of the same God. He is regarded by his followers as an avatar or divine incarnation of God.
Ramakrishna experienced spiritual ecstasies from a young age and started his spiritual journey as a priest at the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple built by Rani Rashmoni. Soon the mystical temperament of Ramakrishna gained him widespread acclaim amongst the general public as a Guru, attracting to him various religious teachers, social leaders, Bengali elites, and common people alike. Although initially reluctant to consider himself a guru, he eventually taught his disciples, who later formed the monastic Ramakrishna Order.
Ramakrishna died due to throat cancer at the night of 15 August 1886. After his demise, his chief disciple Swami Vivekananda popularized his ideas and founded the Ramakrishna Math which provides spiritual training for monastics and householder devotees, and the Ramakrishna Mission which provides charity, social work and education.
Early life
Birth and childhood
Sri Ramakrishna was born on 18 February 1836, in the village of Kamarpukur, in the Hooghly district of West Bengal, India, into a very poor and pious Bengali Brahmin family. He was the fourth and the youngest child of his parents. His father, Khudiram Chattopadhyaya, was born in 1775, and his mother, Chandramani Devi, was born in 1791. The couple's first son, Ramkumar, is said to be born in 1805. A daughter, Katyayani, was born five years later, and a second son, Rameswar, in 1826.
Chandramani Devi was Khudiram's second wife, as his first wife had died young. Khudiram had ancestral property in Dere Village of West Bengal, India. An unscrupulous landlord, Ramananda Roy, who was angry with Khudiram for refusing to commit perjury, brought a false petition against him in the court and took possession of his ancestral property. Bereft of all property, Khudiram and Chandramani Devi moved to Kamarpukur where a friend, Sukhlal Goswami, gifted them one Bigha and ten Chataks of land for their maintenance.
The parents of Ramakrishna are said to have experienced supernatural incidents and visions regarding his birth. In Gaya, his father Khudiram had a dream in which Bhagwan Gadadhara (a form of lord Vishnu) told him that he would be born as his son. Chandramani Devi is said to have had a vision of light entering her womb from the lingam in Yogider Shiv Mandir. In another vision following Ramakrishna's birth, his mother saw a strange tall person lying in the bed instead of the baby Ramakrishna.
The family was devoted to the Hindu deity Rama (the family deity was Sri Raghubir, an epithet of Rama), and the male children of Khudiram and Chandramani were given names that started with Ram or Rama: Ramkumar, Rameswar, and Ramakrishna. There has been some dispute about the origin of the name Ramakrishna, but there is "...evidence which proves beyond doubt that the name 'Ramakrishna' was given to him by his father..." Ramakrishna confirmed this himself, as recorded in "M"s diaries, "I was a pet child of my father. He used to call me Ramakrishnababu."
First spiritual experience
Around the age of six or seven, Ramakrishna experienced his first moment of spiritual trance. One morning, while walking along the narrow ridges of a paddy field, eating some puffed rice from a small basket, he came across the sight of a flock of milky white cranes, flying against the background of heavy rain laden black clouds, which soon covered the entire sky. The ensuing sight was so beautiful that he got absorbed into it and lost all his outer consciousness, before falling down with the rice scattered all over. People nearby who saw this, came to his rescue and carried him home.
At age nine, in accordance with Brahminical tradition, the sacred thread was vested on him, thus making him eligible for conducting ritual worship. He would later help his family in performing worship of their deities. As a result of his devotion in worship, he started to experience Bhava-Samadhi or Savikalpa-Samadhi. He reportedly had experiences of a similar nature a few other times in his childhood—while worshipping the Goddess Vishalakshi, and portraying the God Shiva in a drama during the Shivaratri festival.
Education
Ramakrishna was sent to the village school where he learned to read and write, but he had an aversion to arithmetic, and didn't progress beyond simple addition, multiplication and division. He read the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and other religious books with devotion. But he observed the scholars and found that they were only interested in acquiring wealth and contrasted this with his father's standards of detachment and righteous conduct. So he later lost interest in this "bread-winning education". He instead became proficient in making images, acting and painting. When he was fourteen years old, he started a drama group with some of his friends and left school to pursue it. Ramakrishna had practically no formal education and spoke ungrammatical imperfect Bengali with a rustic accent.
Kamarpukur, being a transit-point on well-established pilgrimage routes to Puri, brought him into contact with renunciate saints and holy men. He became well-versed in the Puranas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavata Purana, hearing them from the wandering monks and the Kathaks—a class of men in ancient India who preached and sang the Purāṇas. He used to sing and enact the songs and scenes from the Purāṇas to the village women. A trader, Durgadas Pyne, who enforced a strict purdah on the women in his household, criticised those who met Ramakrishna to listen to the Purāṇas. Ramakrishna argued with him that women can only be protected through good education and devotion to God, and not through Purdah. A challenge was thrown by Durgadas that it was impossible to look into his inner apartments. Ramakrishna accepted the challenge and dressed himself like a weaver woman, then fooled Durgadas with his disguise and entered the inner apartments of his house. Durgadas, defeated, allowed the women to go and listen to Ramakrishna's recitals.
Ramakrishna's father died in 1843, a loss which he felt very strongly, making him more reticent. Ramakrishna was about seven and half years at this time. Sometimes, visiting the nearby cremation ground alone, he would practice spiritual disciplines there. At this stage, the family responsibilities fell on his elder brother, Ramkumar, who was about thirty-one years older than him. When Ramakrishna was in his teens, as the family's financial position worsened, Ramkumar started a Sanskrit school in Calcutta (Jhama pukur lane), whilst also serving as a priest there. Ramakrishna moved to Calcutta in 1852 along with his brother to assist him in the priestly work.
Priesthood and marriage
Lead up to priesthood
In 19th century Calcutta, there lived Rani Rasmani, a woman with a commanding personality, a wealthy widow with four daughters. She was the first of many prominent women who played a major role in the life of Ramakrishna. Inheriting property from her husband, she managed to endear herself to the people of the city through her exceptional managerial skills of the estate, resistance against the British authorities, and various philanthropic works. Well known for her kindness, benevolence to the poor, and also for her religious devotion, she was much loved and revered by all, and proved herself to be worthy of the title, "Rani" Being an ardent devotee of the Goddess Kali, she had the words, "Sri Rasmani Dasi, longing for the Feet of Kali”, inscribed in her estates official seal. After having a vision of the Goddess Kali, in a dream on the night before her departure for a pilgrimage to the Hindu holy city of Kashi, she founded the now famous Dakshineswar Kali Temple. Reportedly in the dream, the goddess instructed her that instead of visiting Kashi, she had better set up a stone idol of the Goddess at a beautiful place on the banks of the Bhagirathi River, and make arrangements for the daily worship and Prasada offering there; then she would manifest in the deity and receive her worship.
With great delight, the Rani bought a large piece of land on the banks of Hooghly river at Dakshineswar and started the construction of the nine-spired temple, where pilgrims could congregate to catch a glimpse of the Goddess. However, being born into a Cāsi kaivarta family, she was deemed unworthy by local Brahmins to make food offerings to Kali. But it was her heart's desire to offer Prasada to the deity of Kali, and if she did so going against the norms of Brahmanical society of that time, then no devotees would visit that temple, nor would a kulin Brahmin priest officiate there. To find a scriptural solution to her problem, the Rani sought the written opinions of various pandits from different parts of the country; however, none of them were in her favor. When all hope was seemingly lost, she received a letter from Ramkumar, who assured her that scriptural principles would be observed intact if she made a gift of the property to a Brahmin, who could then install the deity and make arrangements for food offerings. No blemish would then be incurred by anyone who partook of the Prasada there. When she agreed to these conditions she displayed savviness in working around the rigidities of caste privileges while apparently adhering to its restrictions.
The Rani decided to consecrate the temple and proceeded with her plans. While the search for priest was on, a Brahmin named Mahesh Chandra Chattopadhyaya, who worked on the estate of the Rani, and her secretary Ramdhan Ghosh, both of whom were well acquainted with Ramkumar, requested him to officiate as a priest at the Rani's temple, albeit temporarily.
The devout Ramkumar agreed, and when Rani installed the black Kali image on the last day of May 1855, he became her chief priest.
Ramkumar informed Ramakrishna about his taking up the post of the priest and asked Ramakrishna to stay in the Kali Temple. Ramakrishna objected strenuously and reminded Ramkumar that their father never officiated in the ceremonies of the purported 'lower castes', but the will of Ramkumar prevailed in this matter. Despite having Brahmanical authority since the beginning, every religious Hindu, irrespective of caste, creed, and class, had access to this temple.
Officiation as priest
On Thursday, 31 May 1855 — Ramkumar, in the presence of his brother Ramakrishna, officiated at the dedication ceremony of the Dakshineswar Kali Temple. Within three months after the consecration of the temple, Mathur Babu, the Rani's right-hand man, much impressed by Ramakrishna, appointed him with the task of dressing the deity of Kali, and Hriday, the sixteen year old nephew of Ramakrishna, as an assistant to both him and Ramkumar. Ramkumar began to teach his brother the mode of worship and service of the Goddess in the hope that he might perform them in his absence. To initiate him properly, a Sadhaka of Shakti, named Kenaram Bhattacharya, was invited. He was apparently charmed to see the religious fervor in Ramakrishna, who became ecstatic as soon as a mantra was recited in his ear.
In order to get him accustomed, Ramkumar later employed Ramakrishna on few occasions to perform the worship of Kali. As Ramkumar grew old and infirm to carry out the difficult duties at the Kali temple, Mathur, with the permission of the Rani, requested him to move to the Vishnu temple in the complex for conducting worship, and appointed Ramakrishna to the office of priest. Ramkumar was glad with this arrangement, and after serving for one year since the consecration of the temple, he died suddenly while preparing to go home on leave, in 1856.
Vision of Goddess Kali
At age 20, Ramakrishna who by now had witnessed more than one death in his family, realising the utter impermanence of life, became more engrossed in the worship of Kali. After the daily worship, he would sit in the temple looking intently at the deity and get absorbed in her, before losing himself in devotion whilst singing with profound emotion the songs composed by devotees like Ramprasad and Kamalakanta. He regarded their songs as an aid in his worship and was certain about getting the vision of Kali as Ramprasad did. With an ardent heart, he would say, "Thou showed thyself to Ramprasad, Mother, why then shouldst Thou not reveal Thyself to me? I don't want wealth, friends, relatives, enjoyment of pleasure, and the like. Do show Thyself to me." Being averse to wasting any time, after the closure of the temple during midday or at night, he would visit the nearby jungle to think and meditate on Kali.
Before meditating, he would put down his clothes and the sacred thread aside, and meditate completely naked. When Hriday, his nephew, found this out, he confronted him to ask him to explain his strange conduct. Ramakrishna explained to him that when one thinks about God, one should be free from all attachments and the eight servitudes of "hatred, fear, shame, aversion, egoism, vanity, noble descent, and good conduct." He viewed his sacred thread as a display of the ego, of his Brahmin descent, and thus kept it aside, saying when calling upon the Mother, one should discard all such bondages and call on Her with a focused mind. He assured his nephew that he would put them on after the end of his meditation. Hriday was aghast at hearing this and left him in dismay.
In this way, he spent his days and nights altogether in prayer, singing, and meditation, while his longing for her vision kept increasing daily. It was not long before people around the temple started noticing his passion and adherence to devotion, which was quite unperturbed by the opinions of people around him. The Rani was informed by her son-in-law, Mathur thus: "We have got an extraordinary worshipper; the Goddess will be awakened very soon".
As the days passed, Ramakrishna's food intake and sleep gradually declined, and when not engaged in either worship or meditation, he was seen to be in a state of turmoil over whether he would have a vision of the Mother. Seeing the evening sun, he would cry, "Mother, another day is gone and still I have not seen you!" Eventually he would question, "Are you true, Mother, or is it all a fabrication of my mind, mere poetry without reality? If you do exist, why can't I see you?"
In time, his longing for her vision became extreme, and he was engaged in either worship or meditation for almost twenty-four hours a day. Despaired, and feeling an unbearable pain at the thought that he might never have her vision, one day, as he later recounted: "In my agony, I said to myself, 'What is the use of this life?' Suddenly my eyes fell on the sword that hangs in the temple. I decided to end my life with it then and there. Like a madman, I ran to it and seized it. And then — I had a marvellous vision of the Mother and fell down unconscious." He became overwhelmed, and before fainting, observed that to his spiritual sight — houses, doors, temples and everything else around vanishing into an empty void and "What I saw, was a boundless infinite conscious sea of light! However far and in whatever direction I looked, I found a continuous succession of effulgent waves coming forward, raging and storming from all sides with great speed. Very soon they fell on me and made me sink to the unknown bottom. I panted, struggled and fell unconscious. I did not know what happened then in the external world — how that day and the next slipped away. But, in my
heart of hearts, there was flowing a current of intense bliss, never experienced before, and I had the immediate knowledge of the light that was Mother." When he regained consciousness, he was found, uttering the word "Maa" (Mother) repeatedly in an aching voice.
Thoroughly convinced of Kali's existence, Ramakrishna now lived at her abode, all the time, and like a child disinclined to leave its mother, so was he disinclined to leave his Divine Mother Kali. Hovering in an ocean of bliss, he guided various seekers to Kali, realising one cannot experience it anywhere but from Her. When asked why he called the deity a "Mother", he answered that it was because the child is most free with the Mother, and she alone can cherish the child more than anyone else. People around him noted that he engaged in talks of spiritual matters alone and never any worldly issues, and while talking about Kali the Divine Mother, he would simply cry and be elated. When someone once asked him about Kali worship, he said:"I do not worship Kali made of clay and straw. My Mother is the conscious principle. My Mother is pure Satchidananda — Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. That which is infinite and deep is always dark-coloured. The extensive sky is dark-coloured and so is the deep sea. My Kali is infinite, all-pervading, and consciousness itself."
Marriage
Rumors spread to Kamarpukur that Ramakrishna became unstable as a result of his spiritual practices at Dakshineswar. Ramakrishna's mother and his elder brother, Rameswar, decided to get Ramakrishna married, thinking that marriage would be a good steadying influence upon him — by forcing him to take up responsibilities, and keep his attention on normal affairs rather than on his spiritual practices and visions. Ramakrishna himself mentioned that they would find the bride at the house of Ramchandra Mukherjee in Jayrambati, three miles to the north-west of Kamarpukur. The five-year-old bride, Saradamani Mukhopadhyaya (later known as Sarada Devi; she is also considered an avatar) was found, and the marriage was duly solemnised in 1859. Ramakrishna was twenty-three at this point, but this age difference for marriage was typical for nineteenth-century rural Bengal. They later spent three months together in Kamarpukur when Sarada Devi was fourteen, and Ramakrishna thirty-two. Ramakrishna became a very influential figure in Sarada's life, and she became a strong follower of his teachings. After the marriage, Sarada stayed at Jayrambati and joined Ramakrishna in Dakshineswar at the age of eighteen.
By the time his bride joined him, Ramakrishna had already embraced the monastic life of a sannyasi; the marriage was never consummated. As a priest, Ramakrishna performed the ritual ceremony – the Shodashi Puja in his room, where he worshipped his wife, Sarada Devi as the Divine Mother. Ramakrishna regarded Sarada Devi as the Divine Mother in person, addressing her as the Holy Mother, and it was by this name that she was known to Ramakrishna's disciples. Sarada Devi outlived Ramakrishna by thirty-four years and played an important role in the nascent religious movement.
As a part of practicing a spiritual mood, called mādhurā bhavā sādhana, Ramakrishna dressed and behaved as a woman. Disciple Mahendranath Gupta quotes the Master as follows:How can a man conquer passion? He should assume the attitude of a woman. I spent many days as the handmaid of God. I dressed myself in women's clothes, put on ornaments and covered the upper part of my body with a scarf, just like a woman. With the scarf on, I used to perform the evening worship before the image. Otherwise, how could I have kept my wife with me for eight months? Both of us behaved as if we were the handmaid of the Divine Mother.
God-realization via various traditions
In 1860, Ramakrishna returned to Dakshineswar and was again caught up in a spiritual tempest, forgetting his wife, home, body, and surroundings. He once described his experiences during this most tumultuous period of his life thus:
"No sooner had I passed through one spiritual crisis than another took its place. It was like being in the midst of a whirlwind, even my sacred thread was blown away. I could seldom keep hold of my dhoti [cloth]. Sometimes I would open my mouth, and it would be as if my jaws reached from heaven to the underworld. "Mother!" I would cry desperately. I felt I had to pull her in, as a fisherman pulls in fish with his dragnet. A prostitute walking the street would appear to me to be Sita, going to meet her victorious husband. An English boy standing cross-legged against a tree reminded me of the boy Krishna, and I lost consciousness. Sometimes I would share my food with a dog. My hair became matted. Birds would perch on my head and peck at the grains of rice which had lodged there during the worship. Snakes would crawl over my motionless body. An ordinary man couldn't have borne a quarter of that tremendous fervour; it would have burnt him up. I had no sleep at all for six long years. My eyes lost the power of winking. I stood in front of a mirror and tried to close my eyelids with my finger and I couldn't! I got frightened and said to Mother: "Mother, is this what happens to those who call on you? I surrendered myself to you, and you gave me this terrible disease!" I used to shed tears — but then, suddenly, I'd be filled with ecstasy. I saw that my body didn't matter — it was of no importance, a mere trifle. Mother appeared to me and comforted me and freed me from my fear."
Ramakrishna grew up practicing Bhakti towards Lord Rama and his duties as a priest at the Dakshineswar temple led him to practice worship of Mother Kali. While serving as a temple priest at Dakshineswar, Ramakrishna would encounter various itinerant sadhus who would visit his place and stay there for a while. Practicing their own modes of worship, several of them initiated Ramakrishna into various schools of Hinduism.
In the year 1861, a female ascetic named Bhairavi Brahmani initiated Ramakrishna into Tantra. Afterwards, he took up the practise of vatsalya bhava (attitude of a Parent towards the divine child) under a Vaishnava guru named Jatadhari. In 1865, a Vedanta monk named Tota Puri initiated Ramakrishna into sannyasa and he attained Nirvikalpa Samadhi, considered as culmination of spiritual practices. In 1866, Govinda Roy, a Hindu guru who practised Sufism, initiated Ramakrishna into Islam, further in 1873, Ramakrishna practiced Christianity and had the Bible read to him.
After more than a decade of sadhana in various religious paths, each culminating in the realization of God by that path, his personal practices settled, and he is said to have remained in bhavamukha, a level of blissful samadhi. He would meditate in the Panchavati (a wooded and secluded area of the Dakshineswar Temple grounds), go to the Kali temple to offer flowers to the Mother, and wave incense to the assorted deities and religious figures, whose pictures hung in his room.
Rama Bhakti
At some point in the period between his vision of Kali and his marriage, Ramakrishna practised dāsya bhāva, during which he worshiped Rama with the attitude of Hanuman, who is considered to be the ideal devotee and servant of Rama. According to Ramakrishna, towards the end of this sadhana, he had a vision of Sita, the consort of Rama, merging into his body.
Bhairavi Brahmani, an ascetic who used to carry with her the Raghuvir Shila - a stone idol representing lord Rama and all Vaishnava deities, who is also well versed in the texts of Gaudiya Vaishnavism stated that Ramakrishna was experiencing a phenomenon that accompanies mahabhava, the supreme attitude of loving devotion towards the divine, and quoting from the bhakti shastras, she stated that other religious figures like Radha and Chaitanya had similar experiences.
Tantra
Tantra focuses on the worship of shakti and the object of tantric training is to transcend the barriers between the holy and unholy as a means of achieving liberation and to see all aspects of the natural world as manifestations of the divine shakti.
In the year 1861, an itinerant middle-aged female ascetic named Bhairavi Brahmani initiated Ramakrishna into Tantra. Under her guidance, Ramakrishna went through sixty-four major tantric sadhanas which were completed in 1863. For all the sixty-four sadhana, he took only three days each to complete. He began with mantra rituals such as japa and purascarana and many other rituals designed to purify the mind and establish self-control. He later proceeded towards tantric sadhanas, which generally include a set of heterodox practices called vamachara (left-hand path), which utilise as a means of liberation, activities like eating of parched grain, fish and meat along with drinking of wine and sexual intercourse. According to Ramakrishna and his biographers, Ramakrishna did not directly participate in the last two of those activities (some even say he didn't indulge in meat eating), all that he needed was a suggestion of them to produce the desired result. Ramakrishna acknowledged the left-hand tantric path, though it had "undesirable features", as one of the "valid roads to God-realization", he consistently cautioned his devotees and disciples against associating with it.
The Bhairavi also taught Ramakrishna the kumari-puja, a form of ritual in which the Virgin Goddess is worshipped symbolically in the form of a young girl. Under the tutelage of the Bhairavi, Ramakrishna also learnt Kundalini Yoga. The Bhairavi, with the yogic techniques and the tantra, played an important part in the initial spiritual development of Ramakrishna.
Vaishnava Bhakti
In 1864, Ramakrishna practised vātsalya bhāva under a Vaishnava guru Jatadhari. During this period, he worshipped a small metal image of Ramlālā (Rama as a child) in the attitude of a mother. According to Ramakrishna, he could feel the presence of child Rama as a living God in the metal image.
Ramakrishna later engaged in the practice of madhura bhāva, the attitude of the Gopis and Radha towards Krishna. During the practise of this bhava, Ramakrishna dressed himself in women's attire for several days and regarded himself as one of the gopis of Vrindavan. According to Ramakrishna, madhura bhava is one of the ways to root out the idea of sex, which is seen as an impediment in spiritual life. According to Ramakrishna, towards the end of this sadhana, he attained savikalpa samadhi (god seen with form and qualities)—vision and union with Krishna.
Ramakrishna visited Nadia, the home of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Nityananda Prabhu, the fifteenth-century founders of Bengali Gaudiya Vaishnava bhakti. According to Ramakrishna, he had an intense vision of two young boys merging into his body while he was crossing the river in a boat. Earlier, after his vision of Kali, he is said to have cultivated the Santa bhava—the child attitude – towards Kali.
Tota Puri and Vedanta
Towards the end of 1864, an itinerant monk named Tota Puri, the tall naked mendicant with tangled hair, a Naga sadhu of Mahanirvani Akhara, born probably in Punjab, arrived at Dakshineswar while on a pilgrimage through various holy places in India. He was the head of a monastery and claimed leadership over seven hundred sannyasis.
These sannyasis are renowned to be the knowers of Brahman, and as beings thoroughly satisfied in themselves, see the whole universe as Brahman and its manifestation through Maya. They are always on move, traveling to different pilgrimage places, visiting various temples and meeting holy men, in order to experience Brahman there. Tota Puri was one such man who was on a similar visit when he arrived at Dakshineswar. It was a traditional convention with him to not spend more than three days at any one place, and arrived at the Kali temple to spend only three days there.
Initial meeting
Arriving at the temple ghat, Tota Puri, getting a glimpse of the devotional face of Ramakrishna, stepped up to him wondering if he can be a fit aspirant for learning Vedanta in Bengal, which was then saturated with Tantra. After observing Ramakrishna rigorously, he asked him on his own volition if he was interested in practicing any Vedantic disciplines. Ramakrishna replied, "I know nothing of what I should do or not; my Mother knows everything; I shall do as She commands." A startled Tota told him to go ask your mother, at which Ramakrishna silently went into the temple and returned ecstatically with a joyful face, and informed Tota that his Mother said, "Go and learn; it is in order to teach you that the monk came here." Being aware that the one whom Ramakrishna was referring to as his Mother was the idol of Devi in the temple, Tota though fascinated at his childlike simplicity, opined his behaviour was due to ignorance and false beliefs. Being a learned man, and of sharp intellect, Tota had no regard for any deity except for the Ishvara of Vedanta. He looked upon the Devi as a delusional figure and had no belief in her existence, much less worshipping or propitiating Her. However he did not say anything about it to Ramakrishna, as he felt his impressions of mind would anyway pass away soon once initiated into sannyasa.
Initiation into sannyasa
At the Panchavati, situated to the north of the temple garden, Ramakrishna was initiated into sannyasa by Tota Puri. At the dawn of morning in the auspicious moment of Brahmamuhurtha, with the Homa fire lighted, he was guided through the various rites and ceremonies involved in the procedure of becoming a Sannyasi. In accordance with the scriptural injunctions and tradition of successive generations, he offered as an oblation, to be free from the desire of having spouse, children, wealth, admiration from people, beautiful body and so on, and renounced them all. He then also offered his sacred thread and the tuft of hair on his head as part of the oblation. A pair of Kaupinas (cloth-covering worn over the privities) and an ochre cloth were then presented by the Guru Tota, to the Sādhaka Ramakrishna, and was instructed thus:
"Brahman, the one substance which alone is eternally pure, eternally awakened, unlimited by time, space and causation, is absolutely real. Through Maya, which makes the impossible possible, It causes, by virtue of its influence, to seem that It is divided into names and forms. Brahman is never really so divided. For, at the time of Samadhi, not even a drop, so to say, of time and space, and name and form produced by Maya is perceived. Whatever, therefore, is within the bounds of name and form can never be absolutely real. Shun it by a good distance. Break the firm cage of name and form with the overpowering strength of a lion and come out of it. Dive deep into the reality of the Self existing in yourself. Be one with It with the help of Samadhi. You will then see the universe consisting of name and form, vanish, as it were, into the void; you will see the consciousness of the little I merge in that of the immense I, where it ceases to function; and you will have the immediate knowledge of the indivisible Existence-Knowledge-Bliss as yourself."
Experience of samadhi
Quoting scriptures, Tota explained to his disciple the need to attain the non-dual consciousness, as it alone can provide a person the supreme bliss.
He tried to enable his disciple to experience the gains from his lifelong Sadhana, right on that day and attempted to make him attain Samadhi. He asked his disciple to free his mind from all functions, and merge it in the meditation of the Self. It so came to pass that when Ramakrishna sat for meditation, he could by no means make his mind stop from functioning. He would withdraw his mind easily from everything, but as soon as he did so, the intimately familiar form of the divine Mother, made up of pure consciousness, would appear before him as a living and moving being, making him unmindful of renunciation. Every time he sat for meditation, this happened all over again, and becoming nearly hopeless, he said to his guru, "No, it cannot be done; I cannot make the mind free from functioning and force it to dive into the Self." Criticizing his disciple very harshly for his defiance, Tota now feverishly went about searching for something in the hut. After finding a broken piece of glass, he took it into his hand and forcibly pierced its needlelike pointed end on his disciple's forehead between the eyebrows and said, "Collect the mind here to this point With a firm determination." Ramakrishna, now determined, sat for meditation, and when as previously the form of the divine Mother appeared before his mind, he immediately cut her mentally in two with the sword of knowledge. There remained then "no function in the mind, which transcended quickly the realm of names and forms, making me merge in Samadhi."
After being near his disciple for a long time, who now entered into Samadhi, Tota came out of the hut and locked its door lest someone enter. Taking his seat outside under the Panchavati, he awaited a call to open the door. Days passed by and nights rolled on, and at the end of three days when there was no call, surprised and curious, he entered the hut and found Ramakrishna sitting in the exact same posture in which he left him, with no sign of breath whatsoever and face calm and radiant. Highly versed in the phenomena of Samadhi, Tota was astonished and thought, "Is it indeed true, what I see enacted before me? Has this great soul actually realized in a day what I could experience only as the fruit of forty years of austere Sadhana?" In disbelief, he now began to examine and inspect in detail, all the signs manifested in the body of Ramakrishna. He particularly examined if his heart was beating and whether there was the smallest amount of breath coming out through his nostrils. He touched and checked his body, which was now in a firm posture like a piece of fixed wood. Seeing no signs of change, nor any return of normal consciousness, Tota, brimming with joy and awe, exclaimed, "Is it in truth Samadhi? Is it the Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the ultimate result attained through the path of knowledge spoken of in the Vedanta? Ah, how very strange is the Maya of the Divine." He then began the process of bringing back his disciple to normal consciousness by chanting the Mantra, "Hari Aum", the sound of which reverberated the entire space around Panchavati.
Maya and the Divine Mother
After the experience of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, Ramakrishna realized that the great weaver of Maya is none other than Kali, the Divine Mother herself; that she projects it by Her will like a spider that spins a web out of itself, and She can no more be differentiated from Brahman than can the power of burning from fire. Observing Maya as a majestic and enigmatic statement of divinity, he was filled with reverence and love for it, unlike the disdain seen in other realised souls.
He observed that Maya functions in the world in two ways and named them as "Avidya Maya" and "Vidya Maya". Considering Avidya Maya to be represented by the lower forces like evil, greed, cruelty etc., which consign a man to the lower level of existence, and Vidya Maya to be represented by the higher forces like kindness, love and devotion, which elevate a man to the higher levels of existence, he felt that when an individual with the help of Vidya Maya could rid himself of Avidya Maya he would become Mayatita or free of Maya. He realised these two facets of Maya to be the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali — Who stands beyond them both, like the beaming sun behind the clouds of different colours and patterns, and shines through them all. Instead of looking upon the world as an illusion of Brahman as per Vedanta, Ramakrishna looked upon it as the manifestation of the Divine Mother.
He further elaborated his view on the Brahman of Vedanta and the Divine Mother of Tantra thus:
"When I think of the Supreme Being as inactive - neither creating nor preserving nor destroying - I call Him Brahman or Purusha, the Impersonal God. When I think of Him as active - creating, preserving, and destroying - I call Him Sakti or Maya or Prakriti, the Personal God. But the distinction between them does not mean a difference. The Personal and the Impersonal are the same thing, like milk and its whiteness, the diamond and its lustre, the snake and its wriggling motion. It is impossible to conceive of the one without the other. The Divine Mother and Brahman are one."
Tota Puri humbled
Having seen the rapid progress of Ramakrishna in the Vedantic path, Tota Puri now started to have many serious discussions with him over devotion to the Divine Mother and the Vedantic Brahman. During the course of one such lively discussion, a servant of the temple garden visited them and took a piece of charcoal from the pit of the sacred Dhuni fire–which was lit by the great ascetic himself–to light his tobacco. At this instance, Tota flew into rage and began to threaten the man; Ramakrishna, who was sitting aside and seeing all this fell onto the ground rolling in laughter, and remarked how powerful the influence of Maya was over the behaviour of Tota, as he was until then talking about how everything is Brahman and all people are its manifestations, but forgot everything and got angry at the man. Tota, feeling embarrassed, vowed never to be angry again. Ramakrishna would go on to say, "Caught in the net of five elements, Brahman weeps" and that no amount of self-knowledge will make the life of a man better until the grace of God is bestowed on him through the power of Maya.
After staying in Bengal Province for a while, the revered Tota Puri, who until then had never had any illness in his life, caught dysentery, which made his life quite miserable. Thinking about taking his leave and moving away, he approached Ramakrishna, but every time he did so he would either forget to mention it, or would feel prevented from speaking by someone within him, and would go back hesitantly. Seeing his frail body, and knowing about his condition, Ramakrishna with help of Mathur arranged for a special diet and medicines, all to no avail. Being well versed in Meditation, Tota Puri used to merge his mind into Samadhi at will and thus avoid feeling the pain in his body. However, on one night the pain in his intestines became so intense that his mind was no longer able to merge in Samadhi, and he decided to drown his "cage of bones and flesh" in the river Ganga and be free from it. He thus set out and on reaching a bank of the river, started walking into it and kept walking further all the way to almost other side of the bank. Baffled that there seemed to be not enough water in the river to drown himself, he looked back, to find, in one dazzling vision, the sight of the divine Mother, the one beyond Turiya, filling up all the space round him. Feeling awed and realising that the Brahman he had been worshipping all his life was none other than the divine Mother herself, with a grateful heart he turned back, and spent the remaining night, meditating on the divine Mother near the dhuni under Panchavati.
When Ramakrishna met him in the morning to enquire about his health, he was found a totally different person with no more illness. Reflecting on how imprudent he was to not accept the divine Mother, Tota explained to him the events that transpired the night before, and that by the grace of the Mother, he was now free from his disease. Ramakrishna, with a smile said, "Well, you did not accept the Mother before and argued with me saying that Shakti was unreal! But you have now seen Her yourself and direct experience has got the better of your arguments. She has convinced me already of the fact that just as fire and its burning power are not different, so, Brahman and the power of Brahman are not different, but one and the same." Tota then asked Ramakrishna to exhort Her to give him permission to leave, as he now realised that was Her will that he, who had never spent more than three days at a place, had spent eleven months there. Both of them then visited the temple and Tota, who until then considered the image of the Devi as a delusion, prostrated himself in front of her idol, along with Ramakrishna. A few days later, he took leave and left Dakshineswar. It was his first and the last visit to that place.
Perception in samadhi
Some time after the departure of Tota Puri from Dakshineswar, Ramakrishna owing to his lack of any restraining elements in life or desires in the world, decided to dwell in the plane of Nirvikalpa Samadhi. As he attempted to do so, once again the form of the divine Mother, "beautiful, more beautiful than the most", started appearing in front of his mind and he, not having the heart to leave her behind and go ahead, would return. After much internal deliberation, with great courage, he again, while meditating, took up knowledge as the sword and cut her form into two, and "there was nothing left in the mind then; and it rushed quickly up to the complete Nirvikalapa state."
Ramakrishna remained in the Nirvikalapa state continually for a period of six months, a state of perception said to be from which no ordinary person returns, as the body would then fall dead after twenty-one days, like a dry leaf from a tree. He remained unconscious of the outer world throughout this period, and stayed put like a dead man, with matted hair and flies moving through his mouth and nostrils. He might have passed away then if not for the untiring efforts of an unknown monk, who happened to be present in Dakshineswar at the time, and who on recognising the state in which Ramakrishna was, thought his body must be kept alive for the betterment of the world as the work of the Mother is still to be done with it, and made attempts every day to bring it back to awareness by beating him with a stick, and feeding him in the resulting fleeting moments of consciousness, which though appeared very rarely for a few moments on some days. This period of being in the Nirvikalapa state came to an end after Ramakrishna received a command from the Mother to remain in Bhava Mukha, a state of consciousness bordering between being absorbed into the absolute and remaining in the relative world, for the sake of enlightening people. This was followed by him having an affliction with a severe bout of dysentery. After suffering an intense pain in the intestines continually for about six months, his mind gradually returned to the normal plane of consciousness, before that it used to rise and be fixated at the Nirvikalpa state every now and then.
He then firmed his awareness at the sixth chakra of Tantra, and lived with his consciousness oscillating between being either absorbed into the impersonal absolute, or remaining in personal devotion to the Mother. Later in his life, it was observed that while talking about or listening to subjects related to God, Ramakrishna with his face beaming a smile and body turning radiant, would become noticeably stiff and unconscious. When one of his disciples asked him why does it happen so and what does he experience in that state? Ramakrishna smiled and replied: "Well, it is called samadhi, the culmination of meditation. I borrow one-sixteenth part of the mind from the Divine Mother and talk and laugh with you, but the remaining portion rests with the Mother, meditating on her real essence as Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. When I talk or hear about the Mother, the whole mind goes to the Absolute and samadhi immediately ensues. Do you know what samadhi really is? It is complete absorption in Brahman. Do you know how I feel at that time? Suppose there is a basin of water on the seashore and a fish is confined in it. If the basin is accidentally broken, the fish finds its way to the unfathomable ocean. It then frolics in the height of joy, doesn't it? Similarly, during samadhi my mind leaps out of this body, as it were, and plunges into Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. Hence the body appears like that. In other words, there is no body-consciousness, and the soul merges in the higher Self — the Paramatman — in the thousand-petalled lotus of the head and experiences unspeakable bliss. That experience sends a wave of divine bliss to the face, and the body becomes radiant. This very self then becomes Shiva, the Absolute."
The periods of Samadhi would later become a regular part in the life of Ramakrishna, and people near him used to find him in a state of Samadhi every now and then, sometimes for almost twenty four hours a day. Once a government official found him remaining in a state of ecstasy for three days and three nights straight. When found deeply absorbed in Samadhi for a long period of time, his devotees would rub cow ghee on his spine from neck to the lower back, and on knees down to the soles of his feet pulling in a downward direction, so as to bring him back to the plane of normal consciousness. Ramakrishna used to say that the natural tendency of his mind is towards the Nirvikalpa plane and once in Samadhi, he would not be inclined to come back to the normal plane of consciousness, but would return for the sake of his devotees and sometimes even this will was not enough, so he would fill his mind with trivial desires like, "I will smoke tobacco", "I will drink water", "I will take this", "I will see so and so, "I will talk", and by repeatedly saying such things to his mind, he would make it gradually return to the plane of body consciousness. He would later often tell his devotees to "tie the Knowledge of non-duality in the corner of your cloth and then do whatever you want".
Islam and Christianity
Islam
In 1866, Govinda Roy, a Hindu man who was previously initiated into Islam and practised Sufism, initiated Ramakrishna into Islam. Ramakrishna learned about Govinda through the latter's regular visits to Dakshineswar. Being much impressed by seeing the faith and love for God in Govinda, Ramakrishna decided to practice Islam, reasoning: "This also is a path to realisation of God; the sportive mother, the source of infinite Lila, has been blessing many people with the attainment of her lotus feet through this path also. I must see how through it she makes those who take refuge in her, attain their desired end."
Ramakrishna engaged himself in the practice of Islam according to its prescribed rules. He devotedly repeated the name of Allah and said their prayers five times a day and remained in that state of mind for three days, after which he had full realisation through their path.
During this practice, Ramakrishna had a vision of a luminous figure, and Swami Nikhilananda's biography speculates that the figure was 'perhaps Mohammed'. According to these accounts, Ramakrishna "devoutly repeated the name of Allah, wore a cloth like the Arab Muslims, said their prayer five times daily, and felt disinclined even to see images of the Hindu gods and goddesses, much less worship them—for the Hindu way of thinking had disappeared altogether from my mind." After three days of practice he had a vision of a "radiant personage with grave countenance and white beard resembling the Prophet and merging with his body". He opined this vision to be of the all pervasive Brahman with attributes, as the vision eventually ended with him merging into the attributeless absolute Brahman. Kripal writes that this "would have been a heretical experience through and through" for most Muslims.
After his experience of practicing Islam, Ramakrishna opined that knowledge of Vedanta can make Hindus and Muslims sympathetic to one another as, "There is, as it were, a mountain of difference between them. Their thoughts and faiths, actions and behaviour have remained quite unintelligible to one another in spite of their living together for so long a time."
Christianity
At the end of 1873, Ramakrishna started the practice of Christianity. After one of his devotees named Sambhu Chandra Mallick read the Bible to him, he got well acquainted with the life and teachings of Jesus.
Once when the Bible was being read out loud to him, from the very beginning there were references to the doctrine of Sin. After hearing a little and finding that it talked of nothing but sin, he refused to listen to it anymore further, saying, "Just as in the case of snakebite, if the patient can be made to believe that there is no poison at all, he will be all right. Similarly, if one constantly thinks, I have taken the name of the Lord, so I am sinless, one becomes pure." He ideated that the more we give up such ideas as "I am sinful", "I am weak", the better it will be for all, as we all are children of God, thus not weak and sinful. He considered thinking of oneself as weak and sinful to be the greatest sin.
In 1874, Ramakrishna experienced a strange vision at the parlour of Jadu Mallik's garden house, situated to the south of Kali temple in Dakshineswar. He was sitting there and looking keenly at a picture of Madonna and Child hanging on the wall, when all of a sudden he saw it come to life with effulgent rays of light emerging from the image and merging into his heart. A few days later, while walking in the Panchavati, he reportedly had a vision of Jesus coming towards him, embracing and merging into his body. At this moment he reportedly lost his normal consciousness, entered into trance and remained for some time identified with the all pervasive Brahman with attributes.
In his own room amongst other divine pictures was one of Christ, and he burnt incense before it morning and evening. There was also a picture showing Jesus Christ saving St Peter from drowning in the water.
Popularisation and final years
Keshab Chandra Sen and the "New Dispensation"
In 1875, Ramakrishna met the influential Brahmo Samaj leader Keshab Chandra Sen.
Keshab had accepted Christianity, and had separated from the Adi Brahmo Samaj. Formerly, Keshab had rejected idolatry, but under the influence of Ramakrishna he accepted Hindu polytheism and established the "New Dispensation" (Nava Vidhan) religious movement, based on Ramakrishna's principles—"Worship of God as Mother", "All religions as true" and "Assimilation of Hindu polytheism into Brahmoism". Keshab also publicised Ramakrishna's teachings in the journals of New Dispensation over a period of several years, which was instrumental in bringing Ramakrishna to the attention of a wider audience, especially the Bhadralok (English-educated classes of Bengal) and the Europeans residing in India.
Following Keshab, other Brahmos such as Vijaykrishna Goswami started to admire Ramakrishna, propagate his ideals and reorient their socio-religious outlook. Many prominent people of Kolkata—Pratap Chandra Mazumdar, Shivanath Shastri and Trailokyanath Sanyal—began visiting him during this time (1871–1885). Mazumdar wrote the first English biography of Ramakrishna, entitled The Hindu Saint in the Theistic Quarterly Review (1879), which played a vital role in introducing Ramakrishna to Westerners like the German indologist Max Müller. Newspapers reported that Ramakrishna was spreading "Love" and "Devotion" among the educated classes of Kolkata and that he had succeeded in reforming the character of some youths whose morals had been corrupt.
Ramakrishna also had interactions with Debendranath Tagore, the father of Rabindranath Tagore, and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, a renowned social worker. He had also met Swami Dayananda. Ramakrishna is considered one of the main contributors to the Bengali Renaissance.
Swami Vivekananda
Among the Europeans who were influenced by Ramakrishna was Principal Dr. William Hastie of the Scottish Church College, Kolkata. In the course of explaining the word trance in the poem The Excursion by William Wordsworth, Hastie told his students that if they wanted to know its "real meaning", they should go to "Ramakrishna of Dakshineswar." This prompted some of his students, including Narendranath Dutta (later Swami Vivekananda), to visit Ramakrishna.
Despite initial reservations, Vivekananda became Ramakrishna's most influential follower, popularizing a modern interpretation of Indian traditions which harmonised Tantra, Yoga and Advaita Vedanta. Vivekananda established the Ramakrishna order, which eventually spread its mission posts throughout the world. Monastic disciples, who renounced their family and became the earliest monks of the Ramakrishna order, included Rakhal Chandra Ghosh (Swami Brahmananda), Kaliprasad Chandra (Swami Abhedananda), Taraknath Ghoshal (Swami Shivananda), Sashibhushan Chakravarty (Swami Ramakrishnananda), Saratchandra Chakravarty (Swami Saradananda), Tulasi Charan Dutta (Swami Nirmalananda), Gangadhar Ghatak (Swami Akhandananda), Hari Prasana (Swami Vijnanananda) Swami Turiyananda and others.
Other devotees and disciples
As his name spread, an ever-shifting crowd of all classes and castes visited Ramakrishna. Most of Ramakrishna's prominent disciples came between 1879 and 1885. Apart from the early members who joined the Ramakrishna Order, his chief disciples consisted of:
Grihasthas or The householders—Mahendranath Gupta, Girish Chandra Ghosh, Mahendra Lal Sarkar, Akshay Kumar Sen and others.
A small group of women disciples, including Gauri Ma and Yogin Ma. A few of them were initiated into sanyasa through mantra deeksha. Among the women, Ramakrishna emphasised service to other women rather than tapasya (practice of austerities). Gauri Ma founded the Saradesvari Ashrama at Barrackpur, which was dedicated to the education and upliftment of women.
In preparation for monastic life, Ramakrishna ordered his monastic disciples to beg their food from door to door without distinction of caste. He gave them the saffron robe, the sign of the Sanyasi, and initiated them with Mantra Deeksha.
Last days
In the beginning of 1885 Ramakrishna suffered from clergyman's throat, which gradually developed into throat cancer. He was moved to Shyampukur near Kolkata, where some of the best physicians of the time, including Dr. Mahendralal Sarkar, were engaged. When his condition aggravated, he was relocated to a large garden house at Cossipore on 11 December 1885.
During his last days, he was looked after by his monastic disciples and Sarada Devi. Ramakrishna was advised by the doctors to keep the strictest silence, but ignoring their advice, he incessantly conversed with visitors. According to traditional accounts, before his death, Ramakrishna transferred his spiritual powers to Vivekananda, and assured him of his avataric status. Requesting other monastic disciples to look upon Vivekananda as their leader, Ramakrishna asked Vivekananda to look after the welfare of the disciples, saying, "keep my boys together", and asked him to "teach them".
Ramakrishna's condition gradually worsened, and he died in the early morning hours of 16 August 1886 at the Cossipore garden house. According to his disciples, this was mahasamadhi. His last word, on one account was "ma", while another states he uttered thrice, the word "Kali", before passing away.
After the death of their master, the monastic disciples led by Vivekananda formed a fellowship at a half-ruined house at Baranagar near the river Ganges, with the financial assistance of the householder disciples. This became the first Math or monastery of the disciples who constituted the first Ramakrishna Order.
Reception and teachings
Ramakrishna's religious practice and worldview, contained elements of Bhakti, Tantra and Vedanta. Ramakrishna emphasised God-realisation, stating that "To realize God is the one goal in life." Ramakrishna found that Hinduism, Christianity and Islam all move towards the same God or divine, though using different ways: "So many religions, so many paths to reach one and the same goal," namely to experience God or Divine. Ramakrishna further said, "All scriptures - the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantras - seek Him alone and no one else." The Vedic phrase "Truth is one; only It is called by different names," became a stock phrase to express Ramakrishna's inclusivism.
Ramakrishna preferred "the duality of adoring a Divinity beyond himself to the self-annihilating immersion of nirvikalpa samadhi, and he helped "bring to the realm of Eastern energetics and realization the daemonic celebration that the human is always between a reality it has not yet attained and a reality to which it is no longer limited."
Ramakrishna is quoted in the Nikhilananda Gospel, "The devotee of God wants to eat sugar, and not to become sugar."
Max Müller portrayed Ramakrishna as, "...a Bhakta, a worshipper or lover of the deity, much more than a Gñânin or a knower." Postcolonial literary theorist Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak wrote that Ramakrishna was a "Bengali bhakta visionary" and that as a bhakta, "he turned chiefly towards Kali."
Indologist Heinrich Zimmer was the first Western scholar to interpret Ramakrishna's worship of the Divine Mother as containing specifically Tantric elements. Neeval also argued that tantra played a main role in Ramakrishna's spiritual development.
Teachings
The principal source for Ramakrishna's teaching is Mahendranath Gupta's Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, which is regarded as a Bengali classic and "the central text of the tradition". Gupta used the pen name "M", as the author of the Gospel. The text was published in five volumes from 1902 to 1932. Based on Gupta's diary notes, each of the five volumes purports to document Ramakrishna's life from 1882 to 1886.
The most popular English translation of the Kathamrita is The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna by Swami Nikhilananda. Nikhilananda's translation rearranged the scenes in the five volumes of the Kathamrita into a linear sequence. Swami Nikhilananda worked with Margaret Woodrow Wilson, daughter of President Woodrow Wilson, who helped the swami to refine his literary style into "flowing American English". The mystic hymns were rendered into free verse by the American poet John Moffitt. Wilson and American mythology scholar Joseph Campbell helped edit the manuscript. Aldous Huxley wrote in his Forward to the Gospel, "...'M' produced a book unique, so far as my knowledge goes, in the literature of hagiography. Never have the casual and unstudied utterances of a great religious teacher been set down with so minute detail." Philosopher Lex Hixon writes that The Gospel of Ramakrishna is "spiritually authentic" and a "powerful rendering of the Kathamrita". Malcolm Mclean and Jeffrey Kripal both argue that the translation is unreliable, though Kripal's interpretation is criticized by Hugh Urban.
Ramakrishna's teachings were imparted in rustic Bengali, using stories and parables. These teachings made a powerful impact on Kolkata's intellectuals, despite the fact that his ideas were far removed from issues of modernism or national independence. According to contemporary reports, Ramakrishna's linguistic style was unique, even to those who spoke Bengali. It contained obscure local words and idioms from village Bengali, interspersed with philosophical Sanskrit terms and references to the Vedas, Puranas, and Tantras. For that reason, according to philosopher Lex Hixon, his speeches cannot be literally translated into English or any other language. Scholar Amiya P. Sen argued that certain terms that Ramakrishna may have used only in a metaphysical sense are being improperly invested with new, contemporaneous meanings.
Ramakrishna's primary biographers describe him as talkative. According to the biographers, Ramakrishna would reminisce for hours about his own eventful spiritual life, tell tales, explain Vedantic doctrines with extremely mundane illustrations, raise questions and answer them himself, crack jokes, sing songs, and mimic the ways of all types of worldly people, keeping the visitors enthralled. As an example of Ramakrishna's teachings and fun with his followers, here's a quote about his visit to an exhibition, “I once visited the MUSEUM There was a display of fossils: living animals had turned into stone. Just look at the power of association! Imagine what would happen if you constantly kept the company of the holy.” Mani Mallick replied (laughing): “If you would go there again we could have ten to fifteen more years of spiritual instructions.”
Ramakrishna was skilled with words and had an extraordinary style of preaching and instructing, which may have helped convey his ideas to even the most skeptical temple visitors. His speeches reportedly revealed a sense of joy and fun, but he was not at a loss when debating with intellectual philosophers. Philosopher Arindam Chakrabarti contrasted Ramakrishna's talkativeness with the Buddha's legendary reticence, and compared his teaching style to that of Socrates.
Society
Ramakrishna taught that yatra jiv tatra Shiv (wherever there is a living being, there is Shiva). His teaching, "Jive daya noy, Shiv gyane jiv seba" (not kindness to living beings, but serving the living being as Shiva Himself) is considered the inspiration for the philanthropic work carried out by his chief disciple Vivekananda.
In the Kolkata scene of the mid to late nineteenth century, Ramakrishna was opinionated on the subject of Chakri. Chakri can be described as a type of low-paying servitude done by educated men—typically government or commerce-related clerical positions. On a basic level, Ramakrishna saw this system as a corrupt form of European social organisation that forced educated men to be servants not only to their bosses at the office, but also to their wives at home. What Ramakrishna saw as the primary detriment of Chakri, however, was that it forced workers into a rigid, impersonal clock-based time structure. He saw the imposition of strict adherence to each second on the watch as a roadblock to spirituality. Despite this, however, Ramakrishna demonstrated that Bhakti could be practised as an inner retreat to experience solace in the face of Western-style discipline and often discrimination in the workplace.
His spiritual movement indirectly aided nationalism, as it rejected caste distinctions and religious prejudices.
Influence and legacy
Ramakrishna is considered an important figure in the Bengali Renaissance of 19th–20th century. Several organisations have been established in his name. The Ramakrishna Math and Mission is the main organisation founded by Swami Vivekananda in 1897. The Mission conducts extensive work in health care, disaster relief, rural management, tribal welfare, elementary and higher education. The movement is considered one of the revitalisation movements of India. Amiya Sen writes that Vivekananda's "social service gospel" stemmed from direct inspiration from Ramakrishna and rests substantially on the "liminal quality" of the Master's message.
Other organisations include the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society founded by Swami Abhedananda in 1923, the Ramakrishna Sarada Math founded by a rebel group in 1929, the Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission formed by Swami Nityananda in 1976, and the Sri Sarada Math and Ramakrishna Sarada Mission founded in 1959 as a sister organisation by the Ramakrishna Math and Mission.
Rabindranath Tagore wrote a poem on Ramakrishna, To the Ramakrishna Paramahamsa Deva:
During the 1937 Parliament of Religions, which was held at the Ramakrishna Mission in Calcutta, Tagore acknowledged Ramakrishna as a great saint because
Max Müller, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sri Aurobindo, and Leo Tolstoy have acknowledged Ramakrishna's contribution to humanity.
Ramakrishna's influence is also seen in the works of artists such as Franz Dvorak (1862–1927) and Philip Glass.
Views and studies
Transformation into neo-Vedantin
Vivekananda portrayed Ramakrishna as an Advaita Vedantin. Vivekananda's approach can be located in the historical background of Ramakrishna and Calcutta during the mid-19th century. Neevel notes that the image of Ramakrishna underwent several transformations in the writings of his prominent admirers, who changed the 'religious madman' into a calm and well-behaving proponent of Advaita Vedanta. Narasingha Sil has argued that Vivekananda revised and mythologised Ramakrishna's image after Ramakrishna's death. McDaniel notes that the Ramakrishna Mission is biased towards Advaita Vedanta, and downplays the importance of Shaktism in Ramakrishna's spirituality. Malcolm McLean argued that the Ramakrishna Movement presents "a particular kind of explanation of Ramakrishna, that he was some kind of neo-Vedantist who taught that all religions lead to the same Godhead."
Carl Olson argued that in his presentation of his master, Vivekananda had hid much of Ramakrishna's embarrassing sexual oddities from the public, because he feared that Ramakrishna would be misunderstood. Tyagananda and Vrajaprana argue that Oslon makes his "astonishing claim" based on Kripal's speculations in Kali's Child, which they argue are unsupported by any of the source texts.
Sumit Sarkar argued that he found in the Kathamrita traces of a binary opposition between unlearned oral wisdom and learned literate knowledge. He argues that all of our information about Ramakrishna, a rustic near-illiterate Brahmin, comes from urban bhadralok devotees, "...whose texts simultaneously illuminate and transform."
Amiya Prosad Sen criticises Neevel's analysis, and writes that "it is really difficult to separate the Tantrik Ramakrishna from the Vedantic", since Vedanta and Tantra "may appear to be different in some respects", but they also "share some important postulates between them".
Analysis of samadhi
From his 10th or 11th year of school, trances became a common part of his life, and by his final years Ramakrishna's samadhi periods occurred almost daily. Early on, these experiences have been interpreted as epileptic seizures, an interpretation which was rejected by Ramakrishna himself.
Psychoanalysis
In 1927 Romain Roland discussed with Sigmund Freud the "oceanic feeling" described by Ramakrishna. Sudhir Kakar (1991), Jeffrey Kripal (1995), and Narasingha Sil (1998), analysed Ramakrishna's mysticism and religious practices using psychoanalysis, arguing that his mystical visions, refusal to comply with ritual copulation in Tantra, Madhura Bhava, and criticism of Kamini-Kanchana (women and gold) reflect homosexuality.
Romain Rolland and the "Oceanic feeling"
The dialogue on psychoanalysis and Ramakrishna began in 1927 when Sigmund Freud's friend Romain Rolland wrote to him that he should consider spiritual experiences, or "the oceanic feeling," in his psychological works. Romain Rolland described the trances and mystical states experienced by Ramakrishna and other mystics as an "'oceanic' sentiment", one which Rolland had also experienced. Rolland believed that the universal human religious emotion resembled this "oceanic sense." In his 1929 book La vie de Ramakrishna, Rolland distinguished between the feelings of unity and eternity which Ramakrishna experienced in his mystical states and Ramakrishna's interpretation of those feelings as the goddess Kali.
The Analyst and the Mystic
In his 1991 book The Analyst and the Mystic, Indian psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar saw in Ramakrishna's visions a spontaneous capacity for creative experiencing. Kakar also argued that culturally relative concepts of eroticism and gender have contributed to the Western difficulty in comprehending Ramakrishna. Kakar saw Ramakrishna's seemingly bizarre acts as part of a bhakti path to God.
Kali's Child
In 1995, Jeffrey J. Kripal in his controversial Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna, an interdisciplinary study of Ramakrishna's life "using a range of theoretical models," most notably psycho-analysis, argued that Ramakrishna's mystical experiences could be seen as symptoms of repressed homoeroticism, "legitimat[ing] Ramakrishna's religious visions by situating psychoanalytic discourse in a wider Tantric worldview. Jeffrey J. Kripal argued that Ramakrishna rejected Advaita Vedanta in favour of Shakti Tantra.
Kripal also argued in Kali's Child that the Ramakrishna Movement had manipulated Ramakrishna's biographical documents, that the Movement had published them in incomplete and bowdlerised editions (claiming, among other things, hiding Ramakrishna's homoerotic tendencies), and that the Movement had suppressed Ram Chandra Datta's Srisriramakrsna Paramahamsadever Jivanavrttanta.
These views were disputed by several authors, scholars, and psychoanalysts, including Alan Roland, Kelly Aan Raab, Somnath Bhattacharyya, J.S. Hawley, and Swami Atmajnanananda, who wrote that Jivanavrttanta had been reprinted nine times in Bengali as of 1995.
Jeffrey Kripal translates the phrase kamini-kanchana as lover and gold. The literal translation is Women and Gold. In Ramakrishna's view, lust and greed, are obstacles to God-realization. Kripal associates his translation of the phrase with Ramakrishna's alleged disgust for women as lovers. Swami Tyagananda considered this to be a "linguistic misconstruction." Ramakrishna also cautioned his women disciples against purusa-kanchana ("man and gold") and Tyagananda writes that Ramakrishna used Kamini-Kanchana as "cautionary words" instructing his disciples to conquer the "lust inside the mind."
The application of psychoanalysis has further been disputed by Tyagananda and Vrajaprana as being unreliable in understanding Tantra and interpreting cross-cultural contexts in Interpreting Ramakrishna: Kali's Child Revisited (2010).
See also
List of Hindu gurus and saints
Dakshineswar Kali Temple
Relationship between Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Notes
References
Sources
(reprint, orig. 1965)
Further reading
External links
1836 births
1886 deaths
19th-century Hindu religious leaders
Advaitin philosophers
Bhakti movement
Bengali Hindus
Hindu mystics
Hindu revivalists
Hindu reformers
Indian Hindu spiritual teachers
Indian Hindu saints
Neo-Advaita
Neo-Advaita teachers
Nonduality teachers
People considered avatars by their followers
People from Hooghly district
Ramakrishna Mission
Spiritual practice
Shaktas
Deaths from throat cancer
Deaths from cancer in India
Bengali Hindu saints |
422572 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical%20castration | Chemical castration | Chemical castration is castration via anaphrodisiac drugs, whether to reduce libido and sexual activity, to treat cancer, or otherwise. Unlike surgical castration, where the gonads are removed through an incision in the body, chemical castration does not remove organs, nor is it a form of sterilization. Chemical castration is generally reversible when treatment is discontinued, although permanent effects in body chemistry can sometimes be seen, as in the case of bone density loss increasing with length of use of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA).
In May 2016, The New York Times reported that a number of countries use chemical castration on sex offenders, often in return for reduced sentences.
Effects
On males
When used on males, these drugs can reduce sex drive, sexual fantasies, and capacity for sexual arousal. Life-threatening side effects are rare, but some users show increases in body fat and reduced bone density, which increase long-term risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis, respectively. Males may also experience gynecomastia (development of larger-than-normal mammary glands in males); full development is less common unless chemical castration is combined with feminizing oestrogen therapy.
On females
When used on females, the effects are similar, though there is little research about chemically lowering female's sex drive or female-specific anaphrodisiacs, since most research focuses on the opposite, but anti-androgenic hormone regimens would lower testosterone in females which can impact sex drive or sexual response. These drugs also deflate the breast glands and expand the size of the nipple. Also seen is a sudden shrinking in bone mass and discoloration of the lips, reduced body hair, and muscle mass.
Treatment for sex offenders
The first use of chemical castration occurred in 1944, when diethylstilbestrol was used with the purpose of lowering men's testosterone.
The antipsychotic agent benperidol was sometimes used to decrease sexual urges in people who displayed what was thought of as inappropriate sexual behavior, and as likewise given by depot injection, though benperidol does not affect testosterone and is therefore not a castration agent.
Chemical castration was often seen as an easier alternative to life imprisonment or the death penalty because it allowed the release of the convicted.
In 1981, in an experiment by Pierre Gagné, 48 males with long-standing histories of sexually deviant behaviour were given medroxyprogesterone acetate for as long as 12 months. Forty of those subjects were recorded as having diminished desires for deviant sexual behaviour, as well as less frequent sexual fantasies and greater control over sexual urges. The research recorded a continuation of this improved behaviour after the administration of the drug had ended, with no evidence of adverse side effects, and so recommended medroxyprogesterone acetate along with counselling as a successful method of treatment for serial sex offenders.
Leuprolide acetate is an LHRH agonist that is most commonly used in chemical castration today. This drug has been observed as having higher rates of success in reducing abnormal sexual urges and fantasies, but is often reserved for those offenders who are at a high risk of reoffending due to the drug's intense effects.
Psychotherapy has also recently been used in conjunction with chemical castration in order to maximize and prolong the beneficial results. Schober et al. reported in 2005 that when cognitive behavioral therapy combined with leuprolide acetetate was compared to cognitive behavioral therapy alone, the combination therapy produced a much more significant reduction of pedophilic fantasies and urges as well as masturbation. Chemical castration therapy reduces an individual's libido which then makes some offenders more responsive to the introduction of psychotherapy. This combination therapy is most often utilized in those who are at a high risk of offending.
Offering criminals the option of chemical castration for a reduction in sentence is an example of compulsory sterilization as it can leave a subject sterile if they are required to continue treatment for more than 3 years.
Scientific critique
Spaying is observed to cause female animals to stop mating in the same way as castration causes male animals to stop mating. However, in animal species where females continue their mating behaviour after being spayed, the males also continue to mate after being castrated. So there are scientists who argue that it makes no biological sense to assume that any treatment that emulates castration would remove sex drive in men but not in women. These scientists argue that these observations, along with the fact that humans are animals and subject to evolution, show that it is flawed to think that male sexuality would be treatable by medication if female sexuality is not.
Some criminologists argue that the appearance of a lower recidivism rate in male sex offenders who take chemical castration treatment than in those who do not can be explained by factors other than biological effects of the medication. One hypothesis is that men who accept the negative effects of hormonal treatment in exchange for shorter prison sentence are distinct in that they value freedom from incarceration higher than men who rather stay in prison for a longer time than face the side effects of chemical castration. These criminologists explain apparently lower recidivism as an artifact of men who accept chemical castration being more engaged in hiding the evidence for reoffending, and that paroling such offenders constitute a risk of releasing criminals who commit as many new crimes as others but are better at hiding it. These criminologists also argue that police investigators treating castrated men as less likely to reoffend than non-castrated men may cause an investigation bias and self-fulfilling prophecy, and that men who sell some of their prescribed medicines on the black market for drugs get a hidden income that improves their ability to afford measures to hide recidivism that is not available to men without such prescriptions.
Some neurologists acknowledge that testosterone plays a role in sexual arousal but consider that reducing sex drive will likely not reduce inappropriate sex behaviour. These researchers argue that since a weaker internal signal in the brain means a higher requirement for external stimulation to create a feedback loop that tires the brain circuits out as in orgasm and lead to satisfaction, a reduction of the internal stimulation from hormones would make the required external stimulation stronger and also more specific, as weaker signals involve narrower ranges of other brain functions in their loops. These scientists therefore argue that the biological (as opposed to sociological) effect of reduced testosterone is to make it more difficult and not easier to use masturbation without pornography or other socially acceptable substitutes to manage remaining sex drive in a former offender, and that many community persons (both male and female) find that a lower initial arousal makes it more difficult to orgasm by masturbation without pornography or with non-preferred stimulation.
Chemical castration by country
Africa
South Africa
In July 2022, a proposed policy of chemical castration for rapists was introduced at the national policy conference of the ruling party, the African National Congress, by the party's Women's League.
Americas
Argentina
In March 2010, Guillermo Fontana of CNN reported that officials in Mendoza, a province in Argentina, approved the use of voluntary chemical castration for rapists, in return for reduced sentences.
United States
In 1966, John Money became the first American to employ chemical castration by prescribing medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA, the base ingredient now used in DMPA) as a treatment for a patient dealing with pedophilic urges. The drug has thereafter become a mainstay of chemical castration in America. Despite its long history and established use, the drug has never been approved by the FDA for use as a treatment for sexual offenders.
California was the first U.S. state to specify the use of chemical castration for repeat child molesters as a condition of their parole, following the passage of a modification to Section 645 of the California penal code in 1996. This law stipulates castration for anyone convicted of child molestation with a minor under 13 years of age if they are on parole after their second offense. Offenders may not reject the intervention, although they may elect surgical castration instead of ongoing DMPA injections.
The passage of this law led to similar laws in other states such as Florida's Statute Section 794.0235 which was passed into law in 1997. As in California, treatment is mandatory after a second offense.
At least seven other states, including Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin, have experimented with chemical castration. In Iowa, as in California and Florida, offenders may be sentenced to chemical castration in all cases involving serious sex offenses. On June 25, 2008, following the Supreme Court ruling in Kennedy v. Louisiana that the execution of child rapists where the victim was not killed was ruled unconstitutional, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed Senate Bill 144, allowing Louisiana judges to sentence convicted rapists to chemical castration. Alabama passed such a law in 2019.
Asia
India
After the outrage following the gang rape of a woman in Delhi, the Government has submitted a draft proposing chemical castration along with an imprisonment of up to 30 years for rape convicts as part of the anti-rape law in India. The ministry is preparing a detailed bill and the recommended changes are under review.
Government is also planning to re-define the Juvenile Act and lower their age. One of the accused in the rape case is a juvenile and aged a few months less than 18 years. A view has been expressed by a section that only those below 15 years should be described as juvenile.
Indonesia
In 2016, the Indonesian President Joko Widodo introduced a presidential regulation (Government Regulation in Lieu of Law No.1/2016) to allow chemical castration to be handed down as a punishment to child sex offenders and pedophiles. The regulation alters the contents of the 2002 Law on Child Protection (Law No. 23 of 2002). DPR later enacted the regulation and amended the law (Law No. 17 of 2016) to enable chemical castration. Although, a convicted child sex offender convicted in 2019 and eligible to be castrated chemically, the technical details on how the punishment will be carried out was under debate between the Government and Indonesian Physicians Association, resulting the sentence suspended until the technical details made. On 7 December 2020, government finally issued Government Regulation No. 70/2020, that detailing technical details on how chemical castration carried out. The chemical castration punishment carried by specifically appointed physician in central government-run or local government-run hospital, and witnessed by witnesses from Attorney General, Ministry of Law and Human Rights, Ministry of Social Affairs, and Ministry of Health. The drugs used for the sentence however, not declared in the government regulation. The government regulation also authorized Ministry of Law and Human Rights to issue regulation to notify the Attorney General, and Ministry of Health to compile the technical procedure for the clinical assessment, conclusion, and implementation. As of January 2021, both derivative regulations not yet published and announced.
Israel
In May 2009, two brothers from Haifa—convicted child molesters—agreed to undergo chemical castration to avoid committing further crimes.
Pakistan
In 2020, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan told a journalist that he would prefer that rapists and child molesters be publicly hanged, but he added that, because he imagined that such capital punishment would gain negative attention for Pakistan on the international stage, he would instead like such offenders to "undergo chemical castration, or surgery be performed so they cannot do anything in future." The Anti-Rape Ordinance 2020, approved by President Arif Alvi in December 2020, allows for chemical castration of rapists without the consent of the offender. Lawmakers gave it permanent approval in November 2021.
South Korea
In July 2011, South Korea enacted a law allowing judges the power to sentence sex offenders who have attacked children under the age of 16 to chemical castration. The law also allows for chemical castration to be ordered by a Ministry of Justice committee. On May 23, 2012, a serial sex offender legally called Park in the court case was ordered by the committee to undergo this treatment after his most recent attempted offense. On January 3, 2013, a South Korean court sentenced a 31-year-old man to 15 years in jail and chemical castration, the country's first-ever chemical castration sentence. In 2017, the sentencing was extended to include all forms of rapes and sexual assault cases against women, including attempted rape.
Europe
Legislation allowing chemical castration exists in France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Russia, North Macedonia, Belgium and Turkey. The drug cyproterone acetate has been commonly used for chemical castration throughout Europe. It resembles the drug MPA used in America.
Estonia
On June 5, 2012, Estonia passed a law that allows voluntary chemical castration as a part of complex treatment for less serious sex offenders as an alternative of imprisonment. However, the treatment is rarely used in practice.
Germany
In the 1960s, German physicians used antiandrogens as a treatment for sexual paraphilia.
Moldova
On March 6, 2012, Moldova legislated forcible chemical castration of child molesters; the law came into effect on July 1, 2012.
North Macedonia
In October and November 2013, North Macedonia authorities were working on developing a legal framework and standard procedure for implementation of chemical castration that would be used for convicted child molesters. The castration is intended to be voluntarily, where as for the child molesters that repeat the criminal act it should be mandatory.
Poland
On September 25, 2009, Poland legislated forcible chemical castration of child molesters. This law came into effect on June 9, 2010; therefore in Poland "anyone guilty of raping a child under the age of 15 can now be forced to submit to chemical and psychological therapy to reduce sex drive at the end of a prison term".
Portugal
In 2008, an experimental intervention program was launched in three Portuguese prisons: Carregueira (Belas, Sintra), Paços de Ferreira and Funchal. The program developers note the voluntary nature of the program a crucial factor in its success. They initially planned to cover ten inmates per prison, contemplating a possible enlargement to other prisons in the future. The program also included a rehabilitation component.
Russia
In October 2011, the Russian parliament approved a law that allows a court-requested forensic psychiatrist to prescribe the chemical castration of convicted sex offenders who have harmed children under the age of 14.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, computer scientist Alan Turing, famous for his contributions to mathematics and computer science, pleaded guilty in 1952 to a charge of gross indecency for engaging in homosexual acts and accepted chemical castration as a term of his probation, thus avoiding imprisonment. At the time, homosexual acts between males were illegal and homosexual orientation was widely considered to be a mental illness that could be treated with chemical castration. Turing experienced side effects such as gynecomastia (breast enlargement) and bloating of the physique. He died two years later, with the inquest returning a verdict of suicide. In 2009 British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a public apology for the "appalling" treatment of Turing after an online petition gained 30,000 signatures and international recognition. He was given a posthumous Royal Pardon in December 2013.
A law allowing voluntary chemical castration was created in the UK in 2007 by then home secretary John Reid.
On April 30, 2010, a 30-year-old man in the United Kingdom found guilty of attempting to murder a 60-year-old woman in order to abduct and rape her two granddaughters (aged eight and two) agreed to undergo chemical castration as part of the terms of his sentence. He was jailed for a minimum of 10 years at the High Court in Glasgow.
Oceania
Australia
In 2010, a 58-year-old repeat child sex offender who had been subject to chemical castration was accused of inappropriately touching and kissing a seven-year-old young girl. He was found not guilty by a jury, which was not informed of the context of his previous offenses.
New Zealand
In New Zealand, the antilibidinal drug cyproterone acetate is sold under the name Androcur. In November 2000 convicted child sex offender Robert Jason Dittmer attacked a victim while on the drug. In 2009 a study into the effectiveness of the drug by Dr David Wales for the Corrections Department found that no research had been conducted in New Zealand into the effectiveness and such trials were "ethically and practically very difficult to carry out."
Objections
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida opposes the administration of any drug that is dangerous or has significant irreversible effect as an alternative to incarceration; however, they do not oppose the use of antiandrogen drugs for sex offenders under carefully controlled circumstances as an alternative to incarceration. Law professor John Stinneford has argued that chemical castration is a cruel and unusual punishment because it exerts control over the mind of sex offenders to render them incapable of sexual desire and subjects them to the physical changes caused by the hormones used.
Some people have argued that, based on the 14th Amendment, the procedure fails to guarantee equal protection: although the laws mandating the treatment do so without respect to gender, the actual effect of the procedure disproportionately falls upon men. In the case of voluntary statutes, the ability to give informed consent is also an issue; in 1984, the U.S. state of Michigan's court of appeals held that mandating chemical castration as a condition of probation was unlawful on the grounds that the drug medroxyprogesterone acetate had not yet gained acceptance as being safe and reliable and also due to the difficulty of obtaining informed consent under these circumstances.
Treatment of cancer
A major medical use of chemical castration is in the treatment of hormone-dependent cancers, such as some prostate cancer, where it has largely replaced the practice of surgical castration.
Chemical castration involves the administration of antiandrogen drugs, such as cyproterone acetate, flutamide, or gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists.
See also
Leuprorelin
Neutersol
Nonsurgical neutering alternatives
Triptorelin
References
Further reading
Castration
Men's health
Punishments
Reproductive rights
State law in the United States
Mental health law |
422586 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20British%20postage%20stamps | List of British postage stamps | This is a list of British postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail postal service of the United Kingdom, normally referred to in philatelic circles as Great Britain. This list should be consistent with printed publications, and cite sources of any deviation (e.g., magazine issue listing newly found variations).
Queen Victoria
Line engraved
One Penny Black issued on 1 May for use from 6 May 1840
Penny Black VR official
Penny Blue
Two penny blue contemporary issue with the Penny Black
One Penny Red issued in 1841 to replace the Penny Black (the first issue with perforations from 1848)
Prince Consort Essay
Two penny blue printed in a new ink. The design has the addition of white * lines above and below the inscriptions
Halfpenny Rose Red issued in 1870 for the reduced postcard and newspaper rate
Three Halfpence Red introduced in 1870 for the reduced printed matter rate
Embossed
Sixpence embossed, 1847–54
Ten Pence embossed, 1847–54
One Shilling embossed, 1847–54
Surface printed
4d, 6d, 1s, 1855–57 (no corner letters)
3d to 1s, 1862–64 (small white corner letters)
3d to 10d, 1865–67 (large white corner letters)
3d to 2s, 1867–80 (large white corner letters – new watermark)
High value definitives, 5s to £5 1867–83
Low value definitives, 1873–80 (coloured corner letters)
Low value definitives, halfpenny to 5d 1880–81
Penny Lilac 1881, the most issued Victorian stamp
High value definitives, 2/6 to £1 1883–84
Lilac and Green low value definitives 1883
Jubilee issue postage stamps 1887–92
King Edward VII
Definitives halfpenny to £1, 1902 (printed by De La Rue & Co.)
Definitives halfpenny to 4d, 1911 (printed by Harrison and Sons)
Definitives d to £1, 1911–13 (printed at Somerset House)
King George V
Definitives halfpenny, 1d, 1911–12 "Mackennals" (designed by Bertram Mackennal)
Definitives halfpenny, 1d, 1912 "Mackennals" (lion shaded)
Low value definitives, 1912–24 (halfpenny to 1s)
High value definitives, 1913–18, "Seahorses"
Postage due stamps, 1914 (halfpenny to 1s)
British Empire Exhibition Postage Stamps (first commemorative issue)
Universal Postal Union Congress, London 10 May 1929 (halfpenny to twopence halfpenny and £1)
Low value definitives, 1934–36 (halfpenny to 1s)
High value definitives, 1934, "Seahorses" (re-engraved)
Silver Jubilee 7 May 1935 (first issue to commemorate a royal event)
King Edward VIII
Edward VIII postage stamps
King George VI
Low value definitives (original dark colours)
Low value definitives (pale colours)
Low value definitives (changed colours)
High value definitives (original square format)
High value definitives (rectangular format) 1951
Coronation 12 May 1937 (first issue to include the Queen's portrait as well as the King's)
Centenary of the postage stamp 6 May 1940
Victory 11 June 1946
Silver wedding 26 April 1948 (first issue to commemorate a personal Royal occasion rather than a state event, £1 value was the first British stamp designed by a woman and the issue is notable for the omission of the words 'postage' and 'revenue').
Channel Islands Liberation 10 May 1948
Olympic Games 29 July 1948
Universal Postal Union (UPU) 10 October 1949
Festival of Britain 3 May 1951
Queen Elizabeth II (pre-decimalisation)
1952–1954
Low value definitives known as Wildings, 5 December 1952, 31 August 1953, 15 October 1954
1953
Coronation, 2 June
1955
Castles high value definitives, 1 September, 23 September, reprinted 1958, 1963, 1967
1957
World Scout Jubilee Jamboree, 1 August
46th Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference, 12 September
Low value Wilding definitives with graphite-lines, 19 November (first graphite-lined issue)
1958
Sixth British Empire and Commonwealth Games, Cardiff, 18 July
1959
Low value Wilding definitives with phosphor bands, 18 November (first phosphor issue)
1960
Tercentenary of Establishment of General Letter Office, 7 July
First Anniversary of European Postal and Telecommunications Conference, 19 September
1961
Centenary of Post Office Savings Bank, 28 August
European Postal and Telecommunications (C.E.P.T.) Conference, Torquay, 18 September (first issue printed in more than two colours)
Seventh Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, 25 September
1962
Note: Issues between 1962 and 1966 inclusive are available in two varieties – with, and without, phosphor bands (which fluoresce in ultra-violet light). These were introduced to help sorting machines distinguish between first and second class letters automatically and the early examples with phosphor bands (up to the 1965 Salvation Army issue) are worth several times those without.
National Productivity Year, 14 November
1963
Freedom from Hunger, 21 March
Centenary of the Paris Postal Conference, 7 May
National Nature Week, 16 May
Ninth International Lifeboat Conference, Edinburgh, 31 May
Red Cross Centenary Congress, 15 August
Opening of COMPAC (Trans-Pacific Telephone Cable), 3 December
1964
Shakespeare Festival, 23 April
Note: First commemorative set to feature in an illustrated Presentation Pack, including mint stamps, with descriptive notes and protective covering. Also first set for which there was an official Post Office issue illustrated First Day Cover envelope and first set to commemorate a person from history.
20th International Geographical Congress, London, 1 July
Tenth International Botanical Congress, Edinburgh, 5 August
Opening of Forth Road Bridge, 4 September
1965
Winston Churchill Commemoration (2 stamps, 4d & 1/3), 8 July
700th Anniversary of Simon de Montfort's Parliament (2 stamps, 6d & 2/6), 19 July
Salvation Army Centenary, (2 stamps, 3d & 1/6), 9 August
Centenary of Joseph Lister's Discovery of Antiseptic Surgery, (2 stamps), 1 September
Commonwealth Arts Festival (2 stamps), 1 September
25th Anniversary of Battle of Britain (8 stamps + 4d values as block of 6), 13 September
Opening of Post Office Tower (2 stamps), 8 October
20th Anniversary of UNO and International Cooperation Year (2 stamps), 25 October
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Centenary (2 stamps), 15 November
1966
Burns Commemoration, 25 January
900th Anniversary of Westminster Abbey, 28 February
Landscapes, 2 May
World Cup Football Championship, 1 June
British Birds, 8 August
England's World Cup Football Victory, 18 August
British Technology, 19 September
900th Anniversary of Battle of Hastings, 14 October
Christmas 1966, 1 December (the first Christmas issue)
1967
European Free Trade Association (EFTA), 20 February
British Wild Flowers, 24 April
British Paintings, 10 July
Sir Francis Chichester's World Voyage, 24 July
British Discovery and Invention, 19 September (last watermarked issue)
Christmas 1967, 18 October and 27 November
Also this year, in two issues, the first Machin definitives (4d, 1s, and 1/9 in the first issue); the remaining values were issued later in 1967 (3d, 9d, and 1/6) and on two dates in 1968.
1968
British Bridges, 29 April (synthetic PVA gum used from this issue)
British Anniversaries, 29 May
British Paintings, 12 August
Christmas 1968, 25 November
1969
British Ships, 15 January
First Flight of Concorde, 3 March
Anniversaries, 2 April
British Architecture (Cathedrals), 28 May
Investiture of The Prince of Wales, 1 July
Gandhi Centenary Year, 13 August
British Post Office Technology, 1 October
Christmas 1969, 26 November
1970
British Rural Architecture (4 stamps), 11 February
Anniversaries (5 stamps), 1 April
London 6 at 4d (Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, 6 stamps) May — rare, only four known in existence
Literary Anniversaries (5 stamps), 3 June
Decimal Currency: Machin design of 10p, 20p, 50p and £1 (4 stamps), 17 June
Ninth British Commonwealth Games (3 stamps), Edinburgh, 15 July
Philympia 1970 stamp exhibition (3 stamps), 18 September
Christmas 1970 (3 stamps), 25 November
Queen Elizabeth II (decimal currency)
1971
Decimal Currency Machins: p, 1p, p, 2p, p, 3p, p, 4p, 5p, 6p, p, and 9p (12 stamps), 15 February
'Ulster ’71' Paintings (3 stamps), 16 June
Literary Anniversaries (3 stamps), 28 July
Decimal Currency Machin: 10p small format (1 stamp), 8 August
British Anniversaries (3 stamps), 25 August
British Architecture: Modern University Buildings (4 stamps), 22 September
Christmas 1971 (3 stamps), 13 October
1972
British Polar Explorers (4 stamps), 16 February
General Anniversaries (3 stamps), 26 April
British Architecture: Village Churches (5 stamps), 21 June
Broadcasting Anniversaries (4 stamps), 13 September
Christmas 1972 (3 stamps), 18 October
Royal Silver Wedding (2 stamps), 20 November (first issue with "all over" phosphor)
1973
British Entry into European Communities, 3 January
British Trees (1st Issue), 28 February
British Explorers, 18 April
County Cricket 1873–1973, 16 May
Artistic Anniversaries, 4 July
400th Anniversary of the Birth of Inigo Jones (architect and designer), 15 August
19th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, 12 September
Royal Wedding, 14 November
Christmas, 28 November
1974
British Trees (2nd issue), 27 February
Bicentenary of the Fire Prevention (Metropolis) Act, 24 April
Centenary of Universal Postal Union, 12 June
Medieval Warriors, 10 July
Birth Centenary of Winston Churchill, 9 October
Christmas, 27 November
1975
Health and Handicap Funds, 22 January
Birth Bicentenary of J. M. W. Turner (painter), 19 February
European Architectural Heritage Year, 23 April
Sailing, 11 June
150th Anniversary of Public Railways, 13 August
62nd Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference, 3 September
Birth Bicentenary of Jane Austen (novelist), 22 October
Christmas, 26 November
1976
Telephone Centenary, 10 March
Social Reformers, 28 April
Bicentenary of American Revolution, 2 June
Centenary of Royal National Rose Society, 30 June
British Cultural Traditions, 4 August
500th Anniversary of British Printing, 29 September
Christmas, 24 November
1977
Racket Sports, 12 January
Centenary of Royal Institute of Chemistry, 2 March
Silver Jubilee, 11 May
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 1977, London, 8 June
British Wildlife, 5 October
Christmas, 23 November
1978
Energy Resources, 25 January
British Architecture: Historic Buildings (4 stamps + MS), 1 March
25th Anniversary of Coronation, 31 May
Horses, 5 July
Centenaries of Cyclists Touring Club and British Cycling Federation, 2 August
Christmas, 22 November
1979
Dogs, 7 February
Spring Wild Flowers, 21 March
First Direct Elections to European Assembly, 9 May
Horseracing paintings and Bicentenary of The Derby, 6 June
International Year of the Child (4 stamps), 11 July
Death Centenary of Sir Rowland Hill (4 stamps and Minisheet including all four stamps), 22 August
150th Anniversary of Metropolitan Police, 26 September
Christmas 1979, 21 November
1980
Centenary of Wild Bird Protection Act (4 stamps), 16 January
150th Anniversary of Liverpool and Manchester Railway (5 stamps + strip of 5), 12 March
London 1980: International Stamp Exhibition (1 stamp and Minisheet), 9 April
London Landmarks (5 stamps), 7 May
Famous Authoresses (4 stamps), 4 July
80th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother (1 stamp), 4 August (first issue to commemorate a Royal birthday)
British Conductors (4 stamps), 10 September
Sport Centenaries (4 stamps), 10 October
Christmas 1980 (5 stamps), 10 November
1981
Folklore (4 stamps), 6 February
International Year of the Disabled (4 stamps), 25 March
Butterflies (4 stamps), 13 May
50th Anniversary of the National Trust for Scotland (5 stamps), 24 June
Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer (2 stamps), 22 July
25th Anniversary of Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme (4 stamps), 12 August
Fishing Industry (4 stamps), 23 September
Christmas (Children's paintings) (5 stamps), 18 November
1982
Charles Darwin (4 stamps), 10 February
Youth Organisations (4 stamps), 24 March
British Theatre (4 stamps), 28 April
??? Pack number 135
Maritime Heritage (5 stamps), 16 June
British Textiles (4 stamps), 23 July
Information Technology (2 stamps), 8 September
British Motor Cars (4 stamps), 13 October
Christmas (Carols) (5 stamps),17 November
1983
British River Fishes (4 stamps), 26 January
Commonwealth Day Monday 14 March (4 stamps), 9 March
British Engineering Achievements (3 stamps), 25 May
The British Army (5 Stamps), 6 July
British Gardens (4 stamps), 24 August
British Fairs (4 stamps), 5 October
Christmas (5 stamps), 16 November
1984
Heraldry (4 stamps), 17 January
Cattle (5 stamps), 6 March
Urban Renewal (4 stamps), 10 April
Europa, CEPT 25th anniversary The Second European Election (2 strips of 2 stamps), 15 May
Greenwich 1884– Meridian −1984 (4 stamps), 26 June
The Royal Mail (strip of 5 stamps), 31 July
The British Council 1934 – 1984 (4 stamps), 25 September
Christmas (The Nativity) (5 stamps), 20 November
1985
Famous Trains (5 stamps), 22 January
Insects (5 stamps), 12 March
British Composers (4 stamps), 14 May
Safety at Sea (4 stamps), 18 June
Royal Mail (4 stamps), 30 July
Arthurian Legend (4 stamps), 3 September
British Films (5 stamps), 8 October
Christmas (Pantomime) (5 stamps), 19 November
1986
Industry Year (4 stamps), 14 January
Halley's Comet (4 stamps), 18 February
60th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II (4 stamps, 2×2 se-tenant), 21 April
Europa. Nature Conservation, Endangered Species (4 stamps), 20 May
Medieval Life (4 stamps), 17 June
Sport (5 stamps), 15 July
Royal Wedding of Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Sarah Ferguson (2 stamps), 22 July
Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference, (1 stamp), 19 August
Royal Air Force, (5 stamps), 16 September
Christmas (Traditions) (6 stamps), 18 November
1987
Flowers, (4 stamps), 6 January
Sir Isaac Newton, (4 stamps), 24 March
British Architects in Europe, (4 stamps), 12 May
St John Ambulance, (4 stamps), 16 June
Scottish Heraldry, (4 stamps), 21 June
Victorian Britain, (4 stamps), 8 September
Studio Pottery, (4 stamps), 13 October
Christmas, (5 stamps), 17 November
1988
Bicentenary of Linnean Society, (4 stamps), 19 January
400th Anniversary of the Welsh Bible, (4 stamps), 1 March
Sports Organisations, (4 stamps), 22 March
Transport and Mail Services, Europa, (4 stamps), 10 May
Australian Bicentenary (4 stamps), 21 June
Spanish Armada, (5 stamps), 19 July
Centenary of death of Edward Lear, (4 stamps), 6 September
Castle high value definitives, (4 stamps), 18 October
Christmas, (5 stamps), 15 November
1989
Centenary of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, (4 stamps), 17 January
Greetings stamps, (5 stamps), 31 January
Food and Farming Year, (4 stamps), 7 March
Anniversaries & Events, (4 stamps), 11 April
Toys and Games, Europa, (4 stamps), 16 May
Industrial Archaeology, (4 stamps), 4 July
150th Anniversary of the Royal Microscopical Society, (4 stamps), 5 September
Lord Mayor's Show, (5 stamps), 17 October
800th Anniversary of Ely Cathedral, (5 stamps), 14 November
1990
150th Anniversary of Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 23 January
Greetings Booklet Stamps. 'Smiles', 6 February
Europa and 'Glasgow 1990 European City of Culture', 6 March
25th Anniversary of Queen's Award for Export and Technology, 10 April
'Stamp World London 90' International Stamp Exhibition, London, 3 May
150th Anniversary of Kew Gardens, 5 June
150th Birth Anniversary of Thomas Hardy (author), 10 July
90th Birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, 2 August
Gallantry Awards, 11 September
Astronomy, 16 October
Christmas, 13 November
1991
Dogs. Paintings by George Stubbs, 8 January
Greetings Booklet Stamps 'Good Luck', 6 February
Scientific Achievements, 5 March
Greetings Booklet Stamps. 'Smiles', 26 March
Europa. Europe in Space, 23 April
World Student Games, Sheffield and World Cup Rugby Championship, London, 11 June
9th World Congress of Roses, Belfast. Wood engravings by Yvonne Skargon. 16 July
150th Anniversary of Dinosaurs Identification by Owen, 28 August
Bicentenary of Ordnance Survey. Maps of Hamstreet, Kent, 17 September
Christmas. Illustrated Manuscripts from the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 12 November
1992
The Four Seasons: Wintertime, 14 January
Greeting Stamps: Memories, 28 January
40th Anniversary of Accession, 6 February
Death Centenary of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 10 March
Europa: International Events, 7 April
350th Anniversary of the Civil War, 16 June
150th Birth Anniversary of Sir Arthur Sullivan, Gilbert and Sullivan Operas, 21 July
Protection of the Environment. Children's Paintings, 15 September
Single European Market, 13 October
Christmas 1992: Stained Glass Windows, 10 November
1993
600th Anniversary of Abbotsbury Swannery, 19 January
Greeting Stamps. 'Gift Giving', 2 February
300th Birth Anniversary of John Harrison (inventor of the marine chronometer). Details of the 'H4' clock, 16 February
14th World Orchid Conference, Glasgow, 16 March
Europa. Contemporary Art, 11 May
Roman Britain, 15 June
Inland Waterways, 20 July
The Four Seasons. Autumn. Fruits and Leaves, 14 September
Sherlock Holmes. Centenary of the Publication of The Final Problem, 12 October
Christmas. 150th Anniversary of Publication of A Christmas Carol, 9 November
1994
The Age of Steam. Railway Photographs by Colin Gifford, 18 January
Greeting Stamps. 'Messages', 1 February
Postage due stamps, 15 February (the final issue of postage due stamps that had been introduced in 1914)
25th Anniversary of Investiture of The Prince of Wales. Paintings by The Prince of Wales, 1 March
Centenary of Picture Postcards, 12 April
Opening of Channel Tunnel, 3 May
50th Anniversary of D-Day, 6 June
Scottish Golf Courses, 5 July
The Four Seasons. Summertime Events, 2 August
Europa. Medical Discoveries, 27 September
Christmas. Children's Nativity Plays, 1 November
1995
Cats, 17 January
The Four Seasons. Springtime. Plant Sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy, 14 March
Greetings Stamp. 'Greetings in Arts', 21 March
Centenary of National Trust, 11 April
Europa. Peace and Freedom, 2 May
Science fiction. Novels by H.G. Wells 6 June
Reconstruction of Shakespeares Globe Theatre, 8 August
Pioneers of Communications, 5 September
Centenary of Rugby league, 3 October
Christmas. Christmas Robins, 30 October
1996
Death Bicentenary of Robert Burns (Scottish poet), 25 January
Greetings Stamps. Cartoons, 26 February
50th Anniversary of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. Bird Paintings by C.F. Tunnicliffe, 12 March
Centenary of Cinema, 16 April
European Football Championship, 14 May
Olympic and Paralympic Games, Atlanta, 9 July
Europa. Famous Women, 6 August
50th Anniversary of Children's Television, 3 September
Classic Sports Cars, 1 October
Christmas, 28 October
1997
Greetings Stamps. 19th-century Flower Paintings, 6 January
450th Death Anniversary of King Henry VIII, 21 January
Religious Anniversaries, 11 March
Europa. Tales and Legends. Horror Stories, 13 May
Architects of the Air: British Aircraft Designers, 10 June
'All The Queens Horses'. 50th Anniversary of the British Horse Society, 8 July
Sub-Post Offices, 12 August
Birth Centenary of Enid Blyton (children's author), 9 September
The Golden Wedding Anniversary 1947-1997, 7 October
Christmas. Christmas Crackers, 27 October
1998
Endangered Species, 20 January
Diana, Princess of Wales Commemoration, 3 February
650th Anniversary of the Order of the Garter. The Queen's Beasts, 24 February
Lighthouses, 24 March
Comedians, 23 April
Health: 50th Anniversary of National Health Service, 23 June
Classic Fantasy Books for Children: Magical Worlds, 21 July
Europa. Festivals. Notting Hill Carnival, 25 August
Speed: British Land Speed Record Holders, 29 September
Christmas. Angels, 2 November
1999
Millennium stamp Series. The Inventors' Tale, 12 January
Millennium stamp Series. The Travellers' Tale, 2 February
Millennium stamp Series. The Patients's Tale, 2 March
Millennium stamp Series. The Settlers' Tale, 6 April
Millennium stamp Series. The Workers' Tale, 4 May
Millennium stamp Series. The Entertainers' Tale, 1 June
Royal wedding, 15 June
Millennium stamp Series. The Citizens' Tale, 6 July
Millennium stamp Series. The Scientists' Tale, 3 August
Solar Eclipse, 11 August
Millennium stamp Series. The Farmers' Tale. Includes 1999 Europa issue, 7 September
Millennium stamp Series. The Soldiers' Tale, 5 October
Millennium stamp Series. The Christians' Tale, 2 November
Millennium stamp Series. The Artists' Tale, 7 December
Millennium stamp Series. 'Millennium Timekeeper', 14 December
2000
New Millennium stamp, 6 January
Millennium stamp Projects (1st Series). 'Above and Beyond', 18 January
Millennium stamp Projects (2nd Series). 'Fire and Light', 1 February
Millennium stamp Projects (3rd Series). 'Water and Coast', 7 March
Millennium stamp Projects (4th Series). 'Life and Earth', (2nd) ECOS Ballymena, (1st) Web of Life Exhibition at London Zoo, 44p Earth Centre Doncaster, 64p Project SUZY Teesside. Printed by De La Rue Security Print. 4 April
Millennium stamp Projects (5th Series). 'Art and Craft', 2 May
'Stamp Show 2000' International Stamp Exhibition, London. 'Her Majesty's Stamps', 23 May
Millennium stamp Projects (6th Series). 'People and Places', 6 June
Millennium stamp Projects (7th Series). 'Stone and Soil', 4 July
Millennium stamp Projects (8th Series). 'Tree and Leaf', 1 August
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's 100th Birthday, 4 August
Millennium stamp Projects (9th Series). 'Mind and Matter', 5 September
Millennium stamp Projects (10th Series). 'Body and Bone', 3 October
Millennium stamp Projects (11th Series). 'Spirit and Faith', 7 November
Millennium stamp Projects (12th Series). 'Sound and Vision', 5 December
2001
The Millennium stamp, 16 January
Centenary of the Death of Queen Victoria, 29 January
Silver hallmarks, 6 February
Cats and Dogs, 13 February
Northern Ireland Definitives, 6 March
Weather, 12 March
Centenary of the Royal Navy Submarine Service, 10 April
England Definitives, 23 April
Double-decker Buses, 15 May
Fabulous Hats, 19 June
Smiles, 3 July
Pond Life, 10 July
Puppets, Punch and Judy, 4 September
Centenary of the Nobel Prizes, 2 October
Centenary of the Royal Navy Submarine Service, Flags 22 October
Christmas, Robins 6 November
2002
Centenary of Publication of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, 15 January
Golden Jubilee, 6 February
Wilding Definitive of 1952–54, 6 February
Greetings Stamps "Occasions", 5 March
British Coastlines, 19 March
Europa, Circus, 10 April
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Commemoration, 25 April
50th Anniversary of Passenger Jet Aviation, 2 May
World Cup Football Championship, Japan and Korea, 21 May
17th Commonwealth Games, Manchester, 16 July
150th Anniversary of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, 20 August
Bridges of London, 10 September
Astronomy Sheet, 24 September
150th Anniversary of the First Pillar Box, 8 October
Christmas 2002, 5 November
50th Anniversary of Wilding Definitives sheet, 5 December
2003
Birds of Prey, 14 January
Greetings Stamps "Occasions", 4 February
50th Anniversary of Discovery of DNA, 25 February
Fruit and Vegetables, 25 March
Overseas Booklet Stamps, 27 March
Extreme Endeavours (British Explorers), 29 April
50th Anniversary of Coronation, 2 June
21st Birthday of Prince William of Wales, 17 June
A British Journey, Scotland, 15 July
Europa, British Pub Signs, 12 August
Classic Transport Toys, 18 September
250th Anniversary of the British Museum, 7 October
Christmas 2003, 4 November
England's Victory in Rugby World Cup sheet, 19 December
2004
Classic locomotives, 13 January
Occasions 2004, 3 February
The Lord of the Rings, 26 February
Northern Ireland, 16 March
Entente Cordiale, 6 April
Ocean Liners, 13 April
Royal Horticultural Society, 25 May
Wales, 15 June
Royal Society of Arts, 10 August
Woodland Animals, 16 September
Crimea, 12 October
Christmas 2004, 2 November
2005
Farm Animals, 11 January
South West England, 8 February
Jane Eyre, 24 February
Magic!, 15 March
Castle series Definitives, 22 March
World Heritage Sites, 21 April
Trooping the Colour, 7 June
Motorcycles, 19 July
A Celebration of Food, 23 August
Classic ITV, 15 September
Trafalgar, 18 October
Christmas 2005, 1 November
2006
Animal Tales, 10 January
England, 7 February
Brunel, 23 February
Opening of the Welsh Assembly Building, 1 March
Ice Age Animals, 21 March
Definitives and country stamps for new postage rates, 28 March
Her Majesty The Queen's 80th Birthday, 18 April
World Cup Winners, 6 June
Modern Architecture, 20 June
National Portrait Gallery, 18 July
Three Kings, 31 August
Victoria Cross, 21 September
Sounds of Britain, 3 October
Christmas 2006, 7 November
Lest We Forget, 9 November
2007
The Beatles, 9 January
Sea Life, 1 February
The Sky at Night, 13 February
World of Invention, 1 March
Abolition of the Slave Trade, 22 March
Celebrating England, 23 April
Beside the Seaside, 15 May
40th Anniversary of the Machin, 5 June
Grand Prix, 3 July
10th Anniversary of the First Harry Potter Book, 17 July
Scouts, 26 July
British Army Uniforms, 20 September
Endangered Species – Birds, 4 September
The Queen's 60th Wedding Anniversary, 16 October
Christmas, 6 November
Lest We Forget, 8 November
2008
James Bond Centenary of Birth of Ian Fleming (6 stamps + Prestige Book), 8 January
LOVE (Booklet), 15 January
Working Dogs Centenary (6 stamps) 5 February
Kings & Queens (Part 1) (Houses of Lancaster and York) (6 stamps + MS), 28 February
Greetings Booklet, 28 February
Celebrating Northern Ireland (MS) and Glorious N.Ireland (Smilers sheet), 11 March
Mayday – Rescue at Sea (6 stamps), 13 March
New Machin definitives & Country stamps for new postage rates, 1 April
Territorial Army Centenary (Commemorative Sheet), 1 April
Insects 'Action for Species' 2 (10 stamps), 15 April
Cathedrals 300th anniversary of completion of St Paul's Cathedral: (6 stamps + MS), 13 May
Retail booklet – Summer holidays, 13 May
Classic Films "Carry on" and "Hammer" Films anniversaries (6 stamps), 10 June
London 1908 Olympics (Commemorative Sheet), 23 June
Airshows (6 stamps), 17 July
Beijing Expo (Smilers Sheet) August
Olympics Handover – 2008 Beijing Olympics (MS), 26 August
British RAF Uniforms – (6 stamps + Prestige Book), 18 September
Country Definitives – 50th anniversary. (MS of 9 stamps + Prestige Book), 29 September
Glorious UK (Smilers sheet), 29 September
Women of Distinction (6 stamps), 14 October
Christmas – Pantomime (6 stamps + MS + Smilers), 4 November
Lest We Forget – 90th anniversary of end of the First World War (MS), 6 November
2009
Design Classics (10 stamps + Prestige Book + Smilers + Self Adhesive retail books released in February, April and September), 13 January
250th Anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns (MS), 22 January
200th Anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (6 stamps + MS + Prestige Book), 12 February
Celebrating Wales (MS), 26 February
Pioneers of the Industrial Revolution (8 stamps), 17 March
New Machin Definitives and Country Stamps for new postage rates April
Kings & Queens Part 2 (Tudors) (6 stamps +MS), 21 April
Endangered Plants & 250th Anniversary of Kew Gardens (10 stamps + MS), 19 May
Treasure of the Archive (Prestige Book) May
Mythical Creatures (6 stamps), 16 June
Olympic Disciplines (10 stamps) July
Postboxes (MS), 18 August
Fire Brigade (6 stamps), 1 September
Royal Navy Uniforms (6 stamp + Prestige Book), 17 September
Eminent Britons (10 stamps), 8 October
Olympic & Paralympic Games (20 stamps), 22 October
Christmas – The Nativity Story as depicted on church stained glass (7 stamps + MS + Smilers), 3 November
2010
Classic Album Covers, 7 January
Girl Guiding, 2 February
The Royal Society, 25 February
Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, 11 March
Kings and Queens – The Stewarts, 23 March
Mammals, 13 April
King George V sheet, 6 May
Festival of Stamps sheet, 8 May
London 2010 sheet, 8 May
Britain Alone, 13 May
The Stuarts, 15 June
Olympic Games, 27 July
Great British Railways, 19 August
Winnie the Pooh, 12 October
Wallace and Gromit X-mas, MS, Generic Smiler 2 November
2011
Classic Children's Television, the Genius of Gerry Anderson – set of 6 & lenticular miniature sheet and Thunderbirds Retail Booklet, 11 January
Pictorial Faststamps, Birds II – Garden Birds 2, 24 January
Classic Locomotives of England, Minisheet, 1st Feb
Indipex Stamp Exhibition Generic Smilers Sheet – 20 x Union flag, 10x labels incl 1969 Gandhi stamp, 12th Feb
West End Stage Musicals set of 6, 24th Feb
Retail Booklet: British Heart Foundation 50th Anniv: has Medical Breakthroughs Beta-Blockers 1st stamp, 24th Feb
Magical Realms – including Discworld, Narnia, Harry Potter, King Arthur: set of 8, 8 March
50th Anniv World Wide Fund for Nature – set of 10, MS & Prestige Booklet, 22 March
Commemorative Sheet 50th anniversary of Jaguar E-type, 30 March
Royal Shakespeare Company 50th Anniversary set of 6 + Minisheet, 12 April
Royal Wedding – miniature sheet of 4 stamps, 21 April
William Morris & Co 150th Anniversary set of 6 + Prestige Booklet, 5 May
Pictorial Faststamps, Water Birds 3 – Mallard, Mute Swan, Kingfisher, Moorhen, Greylag Goose and Great Crested Grebe, 19 May
Rev Wilbert Awdry Birth Cent. (author, Thomas the Tank Engine stories) Set of 6, Minisheet and booklet, 14 June
The Duke of Edinburgh's 90th Birthday Commemorative Sheet, 14 June
Olympics/Paralympics series III – 10x1st class stamps, a Commemorative Sheet and a Composite Sheet/30 stamps, 27 July
Phila'nippon 11, Japan, Exhibition Generic Smilers Sheet, 28 July
The Crown Jewels set of 8, 23 August
Classic Locomotives of England retail booklet, 23 August
World's First Scheduled Airmail, Windsor – Minisheet and Prestige stamp book, 9 September
Arnold Machin Birth Centenary miniature sheet, 14 September
Kings & Queens, House of Hanover, set of 6 + Minisheet, 15 September
Olympics/Paralympics retail booklet 6, 15 September
350th Anniv of the Postmark – Generic Smilers Sheet, 15 September
Pictorial Faststamps, Birds 4 – Sea birds, 16 September
A-Z of the United Kingdom (part 1 – 12 stamps, A-L), 13 October
Retail booklets: 6 x 1st with 2012 Stamp Calendar on inside cover. 12 x 2nd, 12 x 1st, 4 x 2nd Large, 4 x 1st *Large all with Forest Stewardship Council logo, 25 October
Christmas 400th Anniv. of the King James Version of the Bible – set of 7, MS, Smilers Sheet, Stamp booklets, 8th Nov
2012
5 January – Olympic and Paralympic Games Definitive Stamps
10 January – Roald Dahl
20 January – Year Of The Dragon Generic Smilers Sheet
2 February – The House of Windsor (Kings and Queens 6) Set and MS
6 February – HM The Queen's Diamond Jubilee definitive + MS
23 February – Britons of Distinction (Basil Spence, Frederick Delius, Mary 'May' Morris, Odette Hallowes, Thomas Newcomen, Kathleen Ferrier, Augustus Pugin, Montague Rhodes James, Alan Turing, Joan Mary Fry)
24 February – Fast Stamps -Agriculture
8 March – Classic Locomotives of Scotland MS
20 March – World of Children's Comics
10 April – A-Z of the UK, part 2 (14 stamps)
24 April – Post & Go – Pigs
15 May – Design Classics, Fashion
21 May – Post & Go – Union Flag
31 May – HM The Queen's Diamond Jubilee
19 June – Charles Dickens
27 July – Olympic Games (Welcome)
July–August – GB Gold medal winners; stamps issued within 24 hours of event
Helen Glover and Heather Stanning – Women's coxless pair
Bradley Wiggins – Men's road time trial
Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott – Men's slalom C-2
Peter Wilson – Men's double trap
Philip Hindes, Chris Hoy and Jason Kenny – Men's team sprint
Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins – Women's double sculls
Steven Burke, Ed Clancy, Peter Kennaugh and Geraint Thomas – Men's team pursuit
Victoria Pendleton – Women's keirin
Katherine Copeland and Sophie Hosking – Women's lightweight double sculls
Alex Gregory, Tom James, Pete Reed and Andrew Triggs Hodge – Men's coxless four
Danielle King, Joanna Rowsell and Laura Trott – Women's team pursuit
Jessica Ennis – Women's heptathlon
Greg Rutherford – Men's long jump
Mo Farah – Men's 10,000 metres
Ben Ainslie – Finn class
Andy Murray – Men's singles
Scott Brash, Peter Charles, Ben Maher and Nick Skelton – Team jumping
Jason Kenny – Men's sprint
Alistair Brownlee – Men's triathlon
Laura Bechtolsheimer, Charlotte Dujardin, Carl Hester – Team dressage
Laura Trott – Women's omnium
Chris Hoy – Men's keirin
Charlotte Dujardin – Individual dressage
Nicola Adams – Women's flyweight
Jade Jones – Women's 57kg
Ed McKeever – Men’s K-1 200 metres
Mo Farah – Men's 5,000 metres
Luke Campbell – Men's bantamweight
Anthony Joshua – Men's super heavyweight
29 August – Paralympic Games (Welcome)
27 September – Olympic and Paralympic Games (Memories)
28 September – Post & Go – Cattle
16 October – World of Dinosaurs
30 October – Space Science
8 November – Christmas 2012
2013
9 January – 150th anniversary of the London Underground
21 February – Jane Austen
22 February – Post and Go – Freshwater Life 1 : Ponds Stamp Set
26 March – Classic TV – 50 years of Dr Who
16 March – Great Britons
9 May – Football Heroes
30 May – Royal Portraits – Her Majesty the Queen
18 June – Classic Locomotives of Northern Ireland
11 July – Butterflies
8 August – Andy Murray
13 August – British Auto Legends
19 September – Merchant Navy
20 September – Post & Go – Freshwater Life 3 : River Life Set
10 October – Dinosaurs
5 November – Christmas
2014
7 January – Classic Children's TV
4 February – Working Horses
20 February – Classic Locomotives of Wales
21 February – Post & Go – British Flora 1 : Spring Blooms
25 March – Remarkable Lives
15 April – Buckingham Palace
13 May – Great British Film
5 June – Sustainable Fish
17 July – Glasgow 2014 (XX Commonwealth Games)
28 July – The Great War 1914
18 September – Seaside Architecture
19 September – Post & Go – British Flora 2 : Symbolic Flowers
14 October – Prime Ministers
4 November – Christmas
13 November – Post & Go – British Flora 3 : Winter Greenery
2015
6 January – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
18 February – Post & Go: Working Sail
19 February – Inventive Britain
5 March – Bridges
1 April – Comedy Greats
6 May – The 175th Anniversary of the Penny Black
13 May – Post & Go: Heraldic Beasts
14 May – First World War
2 June – Magna Carta
18 June – The Battle of Waterloo (200th anniversary)
16 July – The 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain
18 August – Bees
9 September – Long to Reign Over Us (Her Majesty The Queen becoming the longest reigning UK monarch)
16 September – Post & Go: Sea Travel
18 September – Rugby World Cup
20 October – Star Wars
3 November – Christmas 2015
2016
7 January – Shackleton and the Endurance Expedition
28 January – Duke of Edinburgh Awards: 60th anniversary
17 February – Royal Mail 500 – Post & Go: Royal Mail Heritage
18 February – Penny Red Generic Sheet – Royal Mail Heritage PSB
15 March – British Humanitarians
5 April – William Shakespeare (400th anniversary of his death)
21 April – HM The Queen's 90th Birthday
25 April – First World War: ANZAC
17 May – Animail
28 May – New York 2016 FIP Exhibition
21 June – First World War: 1916
7 July – Music Giants: Pink Floyd
28 July – Beatrix Potter
16 August – Landscape Gardens
2 September – Great Fire of London
14 September – Post & Go: Ladybirds
15 September – Agatha Christie
14 October – Battle of Hastings: 950th anniversary
20 October – Mr Men and Little Misses
8 November – Christmas 2016
14 November – Post & Go: Hibernating Animals
2017
17 January – Ancient Britain
6 February – 65th Anniversary of the Accession
15 February – Windsor Castle
15 February – Post and Go Postal Heritage: Mail by Rail
14 March – Music Giants II – David Bowie
21 March – New Machin and Country Definitives
6 April – Racehorse Legends
4 May – Songbirds
24 May – Exhibition Generic Sheet: Finlandia 2017
5 June – Machin Definitive 50th anniversary
5 June – Machin Anniversary Post and Go
13 June – HRH The Princess Royal
20 June – Windmills and Watermills
30 June – Celebrating Canada
13 July – Landmark Buildings
31 July – World War I (1917)
22 August – Classic Toys
13 September – Post and Go Postal Heritage: Mail by Air
13 September – Opening of The Postal Museum
14 September – Ladybird Books
12 October – Star Wars
7 November – Christmas
20 November – The Royal Wedding: Platinum Anniversary
2018
23 January – Game of Thrones
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15 February – Votes for Women
20 March – Royal Air Force Centenary
17 April – Reintroduced Species
11 May – Owls
19 May – Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – using engagement photographs by Alexi Lubomirski
1 June – 150th Anniversary of Trades Union Congress
5 June – Royal Academy of Arts
26 June – Dad's Army
31 July – Hampton Court Palace
16 August – Captain Cook and Endeavour
30 August – The Old Vic
12 September – Royal Mail Heritage – Mail by Bike
13 September – First World War 1918
16 October – Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World
1 November – Christmas
14 November – HRH The Prince of Wales – 70th Birthday
2019
15 January – Stamp Classics
13 February – Leonardo da Vinci
14 March – Marvel
4 April – Birds of Prey
2 May – British Engineering
24 May – Queen Victoria Bicentenary
6 June – D-Day
9 July – Curious Customs
13 August – Forests
3 September – Music Giants – Elton John
19 September – Royal Navy Ships
26 September – ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2019 / ICC Women's World Cup 2017
10 October – The Gruffalo
5 November – Christmas
xx November – Star Wars
2020
21 January – Video Games
11 February – Visions of the Universe
17 March – James Bond
7 April – The Romantic Poets
8 May – End of the Second World War
28 May – Coronation Street
18 June – Roman Britain
9 July – Queen
30 July – The Palace of Westminster
18 August – Sherlock
3 September – Rupert Bear
1 October – Brilliant Bugs
3 November – Christmas
13 November – Star Trek
2021
14 January – UK National Parks
26 January – United Kingdom: A Celebration (Great Creativity; Great Industry and Innovation; Great Industry and Innovation; Great Sport)
16 February – Only Fools and Horses (television program, 40th anniversary of first broadcast)
16 March – The Legend of King Arthur (550th anniversary of the death of Sir Thomas Malory)
29 March – Queen Legends
15 April – Classic Science Fiction (75th anniversary of the death of H. G. Wells and the 70th anniversary of the publication of The Day of the Triffids)
4 May – The Wars of the Roses (450th anniversaries of the Battle of Tewkesbury and the Battle of Barnet)
28 May – Paul McCartney
24 June – In Memoriam - HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
1 July – Dennis and Gnasher (70th anniversary of first publication)
22 July – Wild Coasts
12 August – Industrial Revolutions
2 September – British Army Vehicles
17 September – DC Comics collection
19 October – Rugby Union
2 November – Christmas 2021
2022
20 January - Music Giants VI - The Rolling Stones
February – Barcoded everyday "definitive" and Christmas stamps introduced after trials; non-barcoded "definitive" stamps no longer valid from 1 February 2023
4 February - Her Majesty the Queen's Platinum Jubilee
18 February - The Stamp Designs of David Gentleman
8 March - The FA Cup
23 March - Heroes of the Covid Pandemic
7 April - Migratory Birds
5 May - Unsung Heroes: Women of World War II
9 June - Cats
1 July - Pride
28 July - Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games
1 September - Transformers
The following issues continue to bear the silouette of HM Queen Elizabeth II, who died on 8 Sept.2023
29 September - Royal Marines
19 October - Aardman Classics
3 November - Christmas 2022
10 November - In Memoriam : Her Majesty The Queen
24 November - Tutankhamun
2023
12 January - Iron Maiden
16 February - X-Men
9 March - The Flying Scotsman - final issue with silouhette of HM Queen Elizabeth II
King Charles III
2023
23 March - Flowers - first issue to feature the silhouette of HM King Charles III. Also the first change of silhouette since 1968
4 April - King Charles III Definitive
13 April - The Legend of Robin Hood
6 May - His Majesty King Charles III: A New Reign
17 May - Blackadder
8 June - Warhammer
22 June - Windrush: 75 Years
13 July - River Wildlife
10 Aug - Terry Pratchett's Discworld
5 Sep - Paddington Bear
21 Sep - Dame Shirley Bassey
19 Oct - Harry Potter
See also
Postage stamps and postal history of the United Kingdom
Regional postage stamps of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom commemorative stamps 1924–1969
United Kingdom commemorative stamps 1970–1979
United Kingdom commemorative stamps 1980–1989
United Kingdom commemorative stamps 1990–1999
United Kingdom commemorative stamps 2000–2009
United Kingdom commemorative stamps 2010–2019
United Kingdom commemorative stamps 2020–2029
Notes
External links
British Postal Museum & Archive
Postage stamps of the United Kingdom
Postage stamps |
422592 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic%20dentistry | Forensic dentistry | Forensic dentistry or forensic odontology involves the handling, examination, and evaluation of dental evidence in a criminal justice context. Forensic dentistry is used in both criminal and civil law. Forensic dentists assist investigative agencies in identifying human remains, particularly in cases when identifying information is otherwise scarce or nonexistent—for instance, identifying burn victims by consulting the victim's dental records. Forensic dentists may also be asked to assist in determining the age, race, occupation, previous dental history, and socioeconomic status of unidentified human beings.
Forensic dentists may make their determinations by using radiographs, ante- and post-mortem photographs, and DNA analysis. Another type of evidence that may be analyzed is bite marks, whether left on the victim (by the attacker), the perpetrator (from the victim of an attack), or on an object found at the crime scene. However, this latter application of forensic dentistry has proven highly controversial, as no scientific studies or evidence substantiate that bite marks can demonstrate sufficient detail for positive identification and numerous instances where experts diverge widely in their evaluations of the same bite mark evidence.
Bite mark analysis has been condemned by several scientific bodies, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), and the Texas Forensic Science Commission.
Training
India
In India, certificate courses offered include a modular course by D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pune, and some other private entities. The Indian Dental Association offers a fellowship program in FO which can be either a classroom program or an online program. Master's degree programs in different forensic disciplines along with M.Sc. Forensic Odontology is offered by National Forensic Sciences University which is the world's only university dedicated to forensic sciences.
It is a 2‑year full‑time course offered at the university's campus at Gandhinagar.
Australia
Postgraduate diploma programs for dentists are available at The University of Melbourne, The University of Western Australia, and The University of Adelaide.
Belgium
The Belgian university KU Leuven offers a master's in Forensic Odontology.
United Kingdom
Following the closure of the MSc course at the University of Glamorgan, one can receive either an MSc in Forensic Dentistry (a one-year programme) or a Masters in Forensic Odontology (a two-year programme) from the University of Dundee in Scotland, which currently has a very limited intake.
United States
There are two odontology training programs available in the US. One is a Fellowship program at The University of Texas Health Science at San Antonio Center Dental School, and the other is a master's degree program through the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture College of Veterinary Medicine.
Canada
For undergraduate studies, dental school candidates in Canada are required to complete a BA or at least three years of study in a BA program before completing a dental degree. BA Programs often involve science or biomedical but can include much more, as long as students have completed the basic prerequisites needed.
There are no graduate study programs for forensic odontology specifically in Canada. Some universities have offered some involvement in forensic science disciples during clinical dental specialty projects, however, they will not graduate with credibility in the forensic odontology discipline.
Dental degrees given by universities in Canada include DDS (doctor of dental science) and DMD (doctor of dental medicine).
There is no professional certification process for forensic odontologists in Canada currently. It is possible for Canadians to certify for the ABFO, a section of the American Academy of Forensic Science. This process also includes an examination as well as the candidates must complete a career checklist of accomplishments which will be reviewed. This checklist may include fellowships, working with recognized medicolegal death investigation agencies, completing a minimum level of casework and research, and providing testimony in court cases. The ABFO and the AAFS often hold scientific sessions which offer workshops including identification, civil litigation, age determination, and bite-mark analysis. These are beneficial in helping prospective forensic practitioners move towards board-eligible status.
In Ontario, there is a group of 10 forensic dentists that are known as the Province of Ontario Dental Identification Team or better known as PODIT.
High-profile criminal cases
Forensic odontology has played a key role in famous criminal cases:
In 1692, during the Salem Witch Trials, Rev. George Burroughs was accused of witchcraft and conspiring with the Devil, with biting his victims supposedly being evidence of his crimes. His bite marks and the bite marks of other people were compared to the victim's marks. The judges readily accepted the bite marks as evidence and this was the first time in what would become the United States that bite marks were used as evidence to solve a crime. He was later convicted and hanged. About two decades later, he was exonerated by the State, and his children were compensated for the wrongful execution.
One of the first published accounts involving a conviction based on bite marks as evidence was the “Gorringe case”, in 1948, in which pathologist Keith Simpson used bite marks on the breast of the victim to seal a murder conviction against Robert Gorringe for the murder of his wife Phyllis. Another early case was Doyle v. State, which occurred in Texas in 1954. The bite mark, in this case, was on a piece of cheese found at the crime scene of a burglary. The defendant was later asked to bite another piece of cheese for comparison. A firearms examiner and a dentist evaluated the bite marks independently and both concluded that the marks were made by the same set of teeth. The conviction, in this case, set the stage for bite marks found on objects and skin to be used as evidence in future cases.
Another landmark case was People v. Marx, which occurred in California in 1975. A woman was murdered by strangulation after being sexually assaulted. She was bitten several times on her nose. Walter Marx was identified as a suspect and dental impressions were made of his teeth. Impressions and photographs were also taken of the woman's injured nose. These samples along with other models and casts were evaluated using a variety of techniques, including two-dimensional and three-dimensional comparisons, and acetate overlays. Three experts testified that the bite marks on the woman's nose were indeed made by Marx and he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
Fredrik Fasting Torgersen
Wayne Boden – an early case of Forensic Dentistry
State of Florida v. Ted Bundy
State of New Jersey v. Jesse Timmendequas (Megan's Law case)
People of California v. Marx, the 1975 case which established evidentiary standards for forensic odontology
People of Arizona v. Ray Krone, bite mark evidence led to a wrongful conviction.
Organizations
Several organizations are dedicated to the field of forensic odontology. These organizations include the Bureau of Legal Dentistry (BOLD), the American Board of Forensic Odontology (ABFO), American Society of Forensic Odontology (ASFO), the International Organization for Forensic Odonto-Stomatology (IOFOS) and the Association Forensic Odontology For Human Rights (AFOHR). Countries have their own forensic Odontological societies, including the British Association for Forensic Odontology (BAFO) and the Australian Society of Forensic Odontology (AuSFO). In 1996, BOLD was created at the University of British Columbia to develop new technology and techniques in forensic odontology. The University of British Columbia program is the only one in North America that provides graduate training in forensic odontology.
In Canada, The Royal College of Dentists has not recognized forensic odontology therefore there is no organization for Canada, however, there are three well-developed and trained groups for forensic dentistry. These groups include British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec. British Columbia has a team called BC Forensic Odontology Response Team (BC_FORT) which is led by six dentists. They focus on disaster-victim identification work. Ontario has a team of ten forensic dentists called the Province of Ontario Dental Identification Team (PODIT). Quebec has a team that is run out of McGill University and they offer a well-established forensic dentistry online course that focuses on human bite-mark evidence. These teams are kept small in order to maintain a relationship between forensic dentists and casework.
The Bureau of Legal Dentistry encourages the use of multiple dental impressions to create a “dental lineup”, similar to a suspect lineup used to identify alleged perpetrators of crime. Currently, dental impressions collected as evidence are compared only to those collected from a given suspect, which may bias the resulting outcome. Using multiple dental impressions in a lineup may enable forensic odontologists to significantly decrease the current bias in matching bite marks to the teeth of a suspect. The organization BOLD also supports the creation of a database of dental records, which could help in verifying dental uniqueness. This database could be created using criminal records or possibly all dental patients.
In 1984, the ABFO attempted to diminish the discrepancies and increase the validity of bite mark analysis by creating bite mark methodology guidelines. The guidelines attempt to establish standard terminology in describing bite marks and that reduces the risk of biased results. The ABFO also provides advice on how to effectively collect and preserve evidence. For example, they recommend that the collection of DNA evidence and detailed photographs of bites be taken together at the crime scene. The guidelines also outline how and what a forensic odontologist should record, such as the location, contours, shape, and size of a bite mark. They also provide a system of scoring to assess the degree to which a suspect's dental profile and bite mark match. According to the ABFO, the guidelines are not a mandate of methods to be used, but a list of generally accepted methods.
The guidelines are intended to prevent potentially useful evidence from being thrown out simply because the forensic odontologist's collection methods were not standardized. Kouble and Craig used a simplified version of the ABFO scoring guidelines in order to retain accuracy with a larger sample of comparisons. A numerical score was assigned to represent the degree of similarity between the bite mark and model/overlay. The higher the score, the greater the similarity. In order to simplify the model, some features that were individually scored in the ABFO guidelines such as arch size and shape were assessed together while certain distinctive features such as spacing between teeth were treated as a separate variable. The authors believe that a simplified version would increase the strength of the comparison process. In an attempt to improve guidelines used to collect dental evidence, IOFOS developed one of the most recognized systems for the collection of forensic dental evidence
There is only one international association promoting humanitarian forensic odontology, called AFOHR. It was inaugurated in 2015 by a group of experts in Lyon during the Interpol DVI annual meeting, following the inspiration of Emilio Nuzzolese, forensic odontologist from Italy. In 2019 the group evolved into Association adopting a by Laws and an elected Board.
In 2016, an association of civil protection called Dental Team DVI Italia was founded in Bari, Italy, in order to offer pro bono services in the field of human identification and DVI Disaster Victim Identification to support Italian DVI teams.
Bite mark analysis
A bite mark is defined as a change in a surface's appearance due to the teeth coming into contact with it, leaving behind a dental pattern of the bite. Upon collection of dental evidence, the forensic odontologist analyzes and compares the bite marks. Studies have been performed in an attempt to find the simplest, most efficient, and most reliable way of analyzing bite marks. There are two important notions when it comes to bite mark analysis: every individual has unique dentition that can be identifiable and this uniqueness can be found in a bite mark left in human skin.
Bites can occur on both the victim and the suspect; teeth are used as a weapon by the aggressor and in self-defense by the victim. Although they are only a small portion of most forensic dentists' caseload, bite marks represent the most challenging aspect of the discipline. In addition to the location of the bite mark, the type of severity of the injury may give investigators clues as to the mental state of the offender. Bite marks may be found on the flesh of victims of a violent attack, particularly on the stomach or buttocks. Bite mark evidence may be the only form of physical evidence found on a body. Alternatively, they may be found on the suspect, left by the victim during self-defense. Bite marks can be altered through stretching, movement, or change in environment after the bite. Skin is not ideal for holding the shape of a bite mark as it can become distorted due to the viscoelasticity of the skin. There is also no set standard by which to analyze and compare bite marks.
Factors that may affect the accuracy of bite mark identification include time-dependent changes of the bite mark on living bodies, effects of where the bite mark was found, damage on soft tissue, and similarities in dentition among individuals. Other factors include poor photography, impressions, or measurement of dentition characteristics.
Most bite mark analysis studies use porcine skin (pigskin), because it is comparable to the skin of a human, and it is considered unethical to bite a human for study in the United States. Limitations to the bite mark studies include differences in properties of pigskin compared to human skin and the technique of using simulated pressures to create bite marks. Although similar histologically, pigskin and human skin behave in dynamically different ways due to differences in elasticity. Furthermore, postmortem bites on nonhuman skin, such as those used in the experiments of Martin-de-las Heras et al., display different patterns to those seen in antemortem bite injuries. In recognition of the limitations of their study, Kouble and Craig suggest using a G-clamp on an articulator in future studies to standardize the amount of pressure used to produce experimental bite marks instead of applying manual pressure to models on pigskin. Future research and technological developments may help reduce the occurrence of such limitations.
Kouble and Craig compared direct methods and indirect methods of bite mark analysis. In the past, the direct method compared a model of the suspect's teeth to a life-size photograph of the actual bite mark. In these experiments, direct comparisons were made between dental models and either photographs or "fingerprint powder lift models." The "fingerprint powder lift" technique involves dusting the bitten skin with black fingerprint powder and using fingerprint tape to transfer the bite marks onto a sheet of acetate. Indirect methods involve the use of transparent overlays to record a suspect's biting edges. Transparent overlays are made by free-hand tracing the occlusal surfaces of a dental model onto an acetate sheet. When comparing the “fingerprint powder lift” technique against the photographs, the use of photographs resulted in higher scores determined by a modified version of the ABFO scoring guidelines. The use of transparent overlays is considered subjective and irreproducible because the tracing can be easily manipulated. On the other hand, photocopier-generated overlays where no tracing is used are considered to be the best method in matching the correct bite mark to the correct set of models without the use of computer imaging.
While the photocopier-generated technique is sensitive, reliable, and inexpensive, new methods involving digital overlays have proven to be more accurate. Two recent technological developments include the 2D polyline method and the painting method. Both methods use Adobe Photoshop. The use of the 2D polyline method entails drawing straight lines between two fixed points in the arch and between incisal edges to indicate the tooth width. The use of the painting method entails coating the incisal edges of a dental model with red glossy paint and then photographing the model. Adobe Photoshop is then used to make measurements on the image. A total of 13 variables were used in the analysis. Identification for both methods was based on canine-to-canine distance (one variable), incisor width (four variables), and rotational angles of the incisors (eight variables). The 2D polyline method relies heavily on accurate measurements, while the painting method depends on the precise overlaying of the images. Although both methods were reliable, the 2D polyline method gave efficient and more objective results.
Criticism of bite mark analysis
Bite mark analysis has been criticized by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The PCAST has identified that bite mark analysis is an area which lacks clear standards in regards to the features needed to identify a particular set of dentition as having created a particular mark. The analysis of bite marks is subjective and is highly criticized.
So called bite mark analysis has been criticized as largely unscientific based on three pillars of critique:
"Human anterior dental patterns have not been shown to be unique at the individual level"
"Those patterns are not accurately transferred to human skin consistently"
"It has not been shown that defining characteristics of those patterns can be accurately analyzed to exclude or not exclude individuals as the source of a [sic] bitemark"
Recently, the scientific foundation of forensic odontology, and especially bite mark comparison, has been called into question. A 1999 study by a member of the American Board of Forensic Odontology found a 63% rate of false identifications. However, the study was based on an informal workshop during an ABFO meeting which many members did not consider a valid scientific setting. In February 2016, the Texas Forensic Science Commission recommended that bite mark evidence not be used in criminal prosecutions until it had a more firm scientific basis. That same year, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology declared that bite mark analysis had no scientific validity.
An investigative series by the Chicago Tribune entitled "Forensics under the Microscope" examined many forensic science disciplines to see if they truly deserve the air of infallibility that has come to surround them. The investigators concluded that bite mark comparison is always subjective and no standards for comparison have been accepted across the field. The journalists discovered that no rigorous experimentation has been conducted to determine error rates for bite mark comparison, a key part of the scientific method.
Critics of bite mark comparison cite the case of Ray Krone, an Arizona man convicted of murder on bite mark evidence left on a woman's breast. DNA evidence later implicated another man and Krone was released from prison. Similarly, Roy Brown was convicted of murder due in part to bite-mark evidence, and freed after DNA testing of the saliva left in the bite wounds matched someone else.
Although bite mark analysis has been used in legal proceedings since 1870, it remains a controversial topic due to a variety of factors. DeVore and Barbenel and Evans have shown that the accuracy of a bite mark on the skin is limited at best. Skin is not a good medium for dental impressions; it is liable to several of irregularities present before the imprint that could cause distortion. Also, bite marks can be altered through stretching, movement, or a changing environment during and after the actual bite. Furthermore, the level of distortion tends to increase after the bite mark was made. Both studies suggest that for the bite mark to be accurately analyzed, the body must be examined in the same position it was in when the bite occurred, which can be a difficult if the not impossible task to accomplish. Bite mark distortion can rarely be quantified. Therefore, bite marks found at the scene are often analyzed under the assumption that they have undergone minimal distortion. Only limited research has been done in trying to quantify the level of distortion of a bite mark on human skin since the 1970s. The lack of research may largely be because such studies are difficult to organize and are very expensive.
Bite mark analysis is also controversial because dental profiles are subject to change. The loss of teeth or the alteration of arch configuration through a variety of procedures is common in human populations. The onset of oral diseases such as dental caries has been shown to alter the arch and tooth configuration and must be taken into account when comparing a dental profile to the bite mark after a significant amount of time has passed since the mark was made.
While the methods behind collecting bite mark evidence at the scene are leading toward greater standardization, the methodology behind analyzing bite marks is extremely variable because it depends upon the preference of the specific odontologist. As discussed earlier, there are several methods used to compare bite marks ranging from life-sized photographs to computer-enhanced three-dimensional imaging. These methods vary in precision and accuracy, and there is no set standard by which to compare or analyze them. The lack of analytical standards leads to a wide array of interpretations with any bite mark evidence. Some odontologists even disagree on whether or not a mark on the body is the result of a bite. Therefore, the interpretation of evidence lies largely on the expertise of the forensic odontologist handling the case.
One possible issue facing bite mark analysis is a lack of bite mark uniqueness in any given population. Bite mark analysis is based on the assumption that the dental characteristics of anterior teeth involved in biting are unique amongst individuals, and this asserted uniqueness is transferred and recorded in the injury. However, there is very little reliable research to support these assumptions. A study performed by MacFarlane et al. supported the notion of dental uniqueness, but the study revolved around the visual assessment of a cast as opposed to the bite mark that could have been produced by the cast. In another study conducted by Sognnaes et al., the group tried to find uniqueness between the dental profiles of identical twins in an attempt to prove dental uniqueness in the general population. However, this study suffered from a small sample size (n=5), with the intent to extrapolate the data to the general population. They also used plaster of Paris as the substrate to simulate skin, yet the two materials have very different properties. In a review conducted by Strom, he references a study conducted by Berg and Schaidt which suggested that at least four to five teeth need to be present in the mark to ensure its uniqueness and make an identification. However, this study was done long before many of the current evaluation methods, and this sheds doubt on how applicable these conclusions are today.
Rawson et al. determined that if five teeth marks can be matched to five teeth, it can be said with confidence that only one person could have caused the bite, and if eight teeth were matched to marks this would be a certainty. However, in this study, the probabilities used to make this claim are based on the assumption that the position of each tooth was independent of all the others. This is probably unrealistic because there are several ways that the dental profile can be changed. For example, braces apply force to specific teeth, in order to shift the placement of multiple teeth.
One particular case that highlighted the lack of uniqueness in bite marks involved two suspects accused of attacking a man who had sustained a bite mark injury. Two separate forensic dentists, one representing the prosecution and one the defense, were brought in to analyze the mark. They reported conflicting results. One found the mark to come from suspect A and the other said it was from suspect B. This disagreement resulted from the fact that even though the two suspects had dental features making them unique, the bite mark itself was not detailed enough to reflect them. Therefore, the mark could have reasonably come from either of the men. The equivocal outcome demonstrated in the case emphasizes the difficulty in proving uniqueness.
Most of the controversies facing bite mark analysis are due to the lack of empirical supporting evidence. When searching the entire MedLine database from 1960 to 1999, only 50 papers in English were found that related to bite mark analysis. Of these 50 papers, most of which were published in the 1980s, only 8% came from well designedd experimentation providing empirical data. The lack of research has led to the continued use of a few outdated and limited studies to support the validity of bite mark analysis. This brings into question whether or not there is enough scientific support for bite mark analysis to be employed in court.
There have been several instances when forensic dentists have made claims, accusations, and guarantees supported by bite mark evaluation that have been proven incorrect through other forensic sciences. DNA analysis has shed some light on the limitations of bite mark analysis because often the DNA from saliva surrounding the area of the bite mark proves to be a more reliable form of identification. In the case of Mississippi vs. Bourne, the DNA of a suspect excluded them from the crime after a dentist claimed the bite marks on the victim matched the defendant's teeth. DNA sampling has been included as a task for a forensic odontologist. For a crime scene investigator, taking DNA samples is as common as taking pictures of the scene. In the case of State vs. Krone, the defendant was sentenced to death, which was overturned. Then Krone was later reconvicted and given life in prison. Both convictions were based largely on bite mark evidence, but ten years later DNA evidence surfaced that identified the real killer and Krone was set free.
Bite marks were a primary source of evidence in the wrongful convictions of Keith Allen Harward, Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. The role of bite marks in their convictions is told in a Netflix series titled The Innocence Files
Age estimation
The estimation of an individual's age category becomes crucial in various forensic contexts; such as crime scenes, accidents, mass disasters, and the potential identification of an unknown individual. In determining an approximation of the latter, it is imperative to be aware of the variety of methods utilized in different situations. The most reliable analysis regarding age estimation is a clinical or visual approach. This includes a noninvasive examination of he tooth's eruption rate, as well as the degenerative modifications upon the teeth. These alterations can be present under forms of attrition. The abrasions manufactured from attrition can lead to a proximate age range of the individual. Not only can the age of a human specimen be narrowed by evaluating the patterns of tooth eruption and tooth wear, but recent studies also provide evidence that cementum, the mineralized tissue that lines the surface of tooth roots, exhibits annual patterns of deposition. Aggrawal has presented a comprehensive account.
In this regard, it should be underlined that age estimation in forensic cases, in contrast to clinical situation, is required to be of optimal accuracy, as potential over- or underestimation of age might lead to a failure of justice.
Adult dentition can be differentiated from juvenile dentition in bite mark analysis by determining the quantity of teeth. Juvenile teeth are considered primary teeth while adult are considered permanent teeth. Twenty teeth will be present by the age of two years old. Thirty-two teeth will be present by the age of twenty-one, with the last ones being the wisdom teeth. By analyzing the quantity of teeth in a bite mark, this can assist with determining the age of the individual.
Sex estimation
The determination of sex is important in the identification of unknown individuals in both forensic and archaeological contexts. The preferred anatomical methods for sex determination are based on pelvic and cranio-facial morphology. Using these parts of the skeleton, males and females can be correctly classified with over 90% accuracy. However, these skeletal elements are sometimes recovered in a fragmentary state, rendering sex estimation difficult. Moreover, there is currently no reliable method of sex determination of juvenile or sub-adult remains from cranial or post-cranial skeletal elements since dimorphic traits only become apparent after puberty, and this represents a fundamental problem in forensic investigations. In such situations, teeth are potentially useful in sex determination. Due to their hardness, they are highly resistant to taphonomic processes and are much more likely to be recovered than other parts of the fact, the enamel present on teeth is the hardest biological substance in the human body; therefore making them extremely sustainable analytical evidence in a forensic context. Moreover, teeth may be particularly useful for sexing immature skeletal remains since both primary and permanent sets of teeth develop before puberty.
For several decades research has been conducted into human dental sexual dimorphism, looking at different tooth classes, and using various techniques and measurements, to try to establish the extent of any dimorphism and find criteria or patterns that might enable accurate sexing of unknown individuals. Most of these studies have focused on sexual dimorphism in crown-size dimensions. This research has established that human teeth are sexually dimorphic and, although males and females exhibit overlapping dimensions, there are significant differences in mean values. Sexual dimorphism has been observed in both deciduous and permanent dentition, although it is much less in deciduous teeth. On average, male teeth are slightly larger than female teeth, with the greatest difference observed in the canine teeth. Research using microtomographic scans to look at internal dental tissues has also shown that male teeth consist of significantly greater quantities of dentine than female teeth. This results in female teeth having thicker enamel, on average. Researchers have attempted to use statistical techniques such as discriminant functions or logistic regression equations based on these sex differences to estimate the usefulness of such formulae is uncertain because sexual dimorphism in teeth may vary between populations. The advanced methods which amplify the DNA by using Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) give 100% success in sex determination. Sex estimation based on dentition remains experimental and has yet to gain widespread acceptance. Nevertheless, it offers potentially useful additional techniques that could be used alongside more established methods.
Identification methods
Radiograph comparison
The comparison of antemortem and post-mortem radiographic records can be done to attain a positive identification of an individual. Teeth are used since they are a very durable and resistant to extreme conditions. The radiographs can present dental restorations as well as unique morphology for each individual. Dental patterns are unique due to the variety of treatments as well as growth for each individual, which creates a benefit in using them for human identification
Post-mortem radiographs can be taken at the scene or in a laboratory, the antemortem records are collected from dentists existing files and are used for comparison with the radiographs taken from the deceased unknown individual.
It is important that dentists keep all radiographs stored properly since the original dental records will be used during this comparison.
The antemortem and post-mortem radiographs will both be analyzed and transcribed onto Victim Identification forms and loaded into a computer database in order to compare many different antemortem records to the post-mortem in order to obtain a match.
Radiograph comparison is often a method used in mass fatalities for example natural disasters but It can be used in any case.
DNA extraction
Teeth contain a great source of DNA since they are very chemically and physically resistant to extreme conditions. This method is especially useful in cases where other DNA sources are not accessible, for example in burned victims. Teeth can be used to create a DNA profile in order to identify unknown deceased individuals. Dentin and enamel provide a resistant and protective surface that houses the dental pulp which is located under the enamel and dentin layers in the center of the tooth, which contains the nerves and blood supply as well. Within the pulp is where genomic and mitochondrial DNA can be extracted. The teeth should not be completely destroyed using DNA analysis alone, it should be compared with other techniques as well before damaging techniques are used.
Smile photographs comparison
In cases where the body is in an advanced stage of decomposition, such as in cases of skeletal remains and charring, and considering the difficulties or impossibility of using fingerprint analysis and the high cost of DNA testing, forensic dentistry can play an important role in identification.
The most common means used for ante-mortem comparison are X-rays, dental models, and dental records. However, there are cases where the presumed victim never visited a dentist or the family cannot obtain the aforementioned sources, complicating the odontolegal identification of the victim. Another source of comparison can be photographs of the presumed victim's smile (ante-mortem) compared to photographs of the deceased person's smile (post-mortem), which can highlight the dental characteristics present and, if consistent, confirm the victim's identification.
However, it is important to pay attention to details that are important in the process, such as the techniques that will be used for the comparison. Two main techniques are generally employed (both of which require the forensic dentist to take photographs of the deceased person's smile, which can then be compared to the ante-mortem photographs):
Direct comparison of the characteristics presents in the ante-mortem photograph with the observed characteristics in the deceased person. In this technique, the ante-mortem and post-mortem photographs must be paired, and the dental characteristics found should be compared, described, and noted.
Computerized outlining of the incisal edges of the teeth in the ante-mortem and post-mortem photographs. In this technique, the expert analyzes the morphology of the smile line, delineating the incisal edges and comparing them.
To achieve this, attention must be given to important details, such as:
Both the ante-mortem and post-mortem photographs need to be as clear as possible, with good/excellent quality.
The post-mortem photograph should be taken at the same angle of incidence as the ante-mortem photograph.
The more visible teeth in the ante-mortem photograph, the better. Therefore, selecting the best photograph obtained is important.
The use of software to annotate the characteristics present in the ante-mortem and post-mortem photographs, facilitating the visualization of comparative elements for everyone, including laypeople.
It is important to emphasize that each person's smile is unique, just like fingerprints, palatal rugae, and DNA. Therefore, when properly applied with the necessary scientific rigor, identification through photographs of the smile becomes a reliable method to establish an identification
Palatal rugoscopy comparison
This method of identification involves the analysis and comparison of palatal rugae from the deceased with the palatal rugae of the potential victim. One way to perform this comparison is by creating a mold of the upper arch of the deceased (capturing the palatal rugae) or using a complete upper denture that belonged to the deceased, or on a plaster model for dental purposes, and in an object containing the palatal rugae of the missing person during their lifetime (such as an old complete upper denture in possession of the family). Once the two plaster models are created, they should be scanned/photographed, and a computerized delineation of the palatal rugae should be performed, analyzing each individual ruga and comparing their location, shape, and pattern in each of the photos (of the models).
If there is a match, the victim can be identified. It is important to note that the use of dentures for this identification can be done if the palatal rugae are clearly visible. The impression of palatal rugae in dental prostheses is formed over several years of use by the individual. This method has a significant impact on the identification process, particularly when other methodologies and identification techniques cannot be implemented.
See also
American Society of Forensic Odontology
Hair analysis
Innocence Project
Comparative dental analysis
References
Further reading
External links
The American Board of Forensic Odontologya certifying body for North American and other forensic odontologists
The American Society of Forensic Odontologya society for all persons interested in forensic odontology
The Australian Society of Forensic Odontology
The British Association for Forensic Odontology
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP)a military sponsored venue for education in forensic odontology (annual courses)
Forensic dentistry online
Structure Magazine no. 40, "RepliSet: High Resolution Impressions of the Teeth of Human Ancestors" by Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg and John C. Mitchell
Forensic Oral Pathology Journal – FOPJ
Dentistry branches
Dentistry
Personal identification
Pseudoscience |
422642 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manipur | Manipur | Manipur, (, : ) historically known as Kangleipak, is a state in northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of Myanmar, Sagaing Region to the east and Chin State to the south. The state covers an area of . The official and most widely spoken language is Meitei language (officially known as Manipuri language). Native to the Meitei people, it is also used as a lingua franca by smaller communities, who speak a variety of other Tibeto-Burman languages. Manipur has been at the crossroads of Asian economic and cultural exchange for more than 2,500 years. This exchange connects the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia to Southeast Asia, East Asia, Siberia, regions in the Arctic, Micronesia and Polynesia enabling migration of people, cultures and religions.
During the days of the British Raj, the Kingdom of Manipur was one of the princely states. Between 1917 and 1939, some people of Manipur pressed the princely rulers for democracy. By the late 1930s, the princely state of Manipur negotiated with the British administration its preference to continue to be part of the Indian Empire, rather than part of Burma, which was being separated from India. These negotiations were cut short with the outbreak of World War II in 1939. On 11 August 1947, Maharaja Budhachandra signed an Instrument of Accession, joining the new Indian Union. Later, on 21 September 1949, he signed a Merger Agreement, merging the kingdom into India, which led to its becoming a Part C State. This merger was later disputed by groups in Manipur, as having been completed without consensus and under duress. The dispute and differing visions for the future has resulted in a 50-year insurgency in the state for independence from India, as well as in repeated episodes of violence among ethnic groups in the state. From 2009 through 2018, the conflict was responsible for the violent deaths of over 1000 people.
The Meitei people represent around 53% of the population of Manipur state, followed by various Naga ethnic groups at 24% and various Kuki/Zo tribes (also known as Chin-Kuki-Mizo people) at 16%. Manipur's ethnic groups practice a variety of religions. According to 2011 census, Hinduism and Christianity are the major religions of the state. Between the 1961 and 2011 censuses of India, the share of Hindus in the state declined from 62% to 41%, while the share of Christians rose from 19% to 41%.
Manipur has primarily an agrarian economy, with significant hydroelectric power generation potential. It is connected to other areas by daily flights through Imphal international airport, the second largest in northeastern India. Manipur is home to many sports and the origin of Manipuri classical dance, and is credited with introducing polo to Europeans.
Alternative names and their etymologies
Two Sanskrit words compose the name "Manipur": "Maṇi", which means jewel, and "purǝ", which means land, place, or abode. Thus, "Manipur" may be translated as "Jewelled land".
Manipur is mentioned in older texts as "Kangleipak" () or "Meeteileipak". Sanamahi Laikan wrote that officials during the reign of Meidingu Pamheiba in the eighteenth century adopted Manipur's new name.
Neighbouring cultures each had differing names for Manipur and its people. The Shan or Pong called the area Cassay; the Burmese, Kathe; and the Assamese, Meklee. In the first treaty between the British East India Company and Meidingu Chingthangkhomba (Bhagyachandra), signed in 1762, the kingdom was referred to as "Meckley". Bhagyachandra and his successors issued coins engraved with "Manipureshwar", or "lord of Manipur", and the British soon discarded the name of Meckley. Later, the work Dharani Samhita (1825–34) popularised the Sanskrit legends of the origin of Manipur's name.
The term Kanglei, meaning "of Manipur/Kangleipak", is used to refer to items associated with the state where the term Manipuri is a recently given name.
History
Antiquity
The history of Manipur Meiteis is chronicled in Puyas or Puwaris (stories about the forefathers), namely, the Ninghthou Kangbalon, Cheitharol Kumbaba, Ningthourol Lambuba, Poireiton Khunthokpa, Panthoibi Khongkul, and so forth in the archaic Meitei script, which is comparable to the Thai script. The historical accounts presented here were recordings from the eyes and the judgment of Meitei kings and (Meitei scholars). Hill tribes have their own folk tales, myths, and legends. Manipur was known by different names at various periods in its history, such as, Tilli-Koktong, Poirei-Lam, Sanna-Leipak, Mitei-Leipak, Meitrabak or Manipur (present day). Its capital was Kangla, Yumphal or Imphal (present day). Its people were known by various names, such as Mi-tei, Poirei-Mitei, Meetei, Maitei or Meitei. The Puwaris, Ninghthou Kangbalon, Ningthourol Lambuba, Cheitharol Kumbaba, Poireiton Khunthokpa, recorded the events of each King who ruled Manipur in a span of more than 3500 years until 1955 CE (a total of more than 108 kings).
According to some Tai chronicles, Manipur (Kahse) is one of the territories conquered by Samlongpha (1150–1201), the first Sawbwa of Mogaung. A 14th-century inscription from Pagan, Myanmar, mentions Kasan (Manipur) as one of the 21 states under the Mong Mao ruler Thonganbwa (1413–1445/6); he later was captured by the Governor of Taungdwingyi. Ningthou Kangba (15th century BCE) is regarded as the first and foremost king of Manipur. There were times when the country was in turmoil without rulers, and long historical gaps exist between 1129 BCE and 44 BCE.
In 1891 CE, as a result of the British defeat of the Meiteis in the Anglo-Manipuri war of Khongjom, Manipur lost the sovereignty which it had maintained for more than three millennia. From 1926 until 4 January 1947, Manipur was just one of the Pakokku Hill Tracts Districts of British Burma. Manipur regained its separate identity on 14 August 1947 and, on 15 October 1949, was unified with India.
Medieval
By the medieval period, marriage alliances between the royal families of Manipur, Ahom kingdom and Burma had become common. Medieval era manuscripts discovered in the 20th century, particularly the Puya, provide evidence that Hindus from the Indian subcontinent had married Manipur royalty by at least the 14th century. In centuries thereafter, royal spouses came also from what is now Assam, Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh and from other South Indian kingdoms as well. Another manuscript suggests that Muslims arrived in Manipur in the 17th century, from what is now Bangladesh, during the reign of Meidingu Khagemba. The socio-political turmoil and wars, particularly the persistent and devastating Anglo-Burmese wars, affected the cultural and religious demography of Manipur.
British colonial period
In 1824, the ruler of Manipur entered into a subsidiary alliance with the British Empire in the Indian subcontinent, which became responsible for Manipur's external defence. The British recognised that the state remained internally self-governing, as a princely state. During World War II, Manipur was the scene of many fierce battles between Japanese invaders and British Indian forces. The Japanese were beaten back before they could enter Imphal, which was one of the turning points of the overall war in South Asia. The Battle of Imphal, known to the Manipuris as Japan Laan, are among the lesser-known battles of the Second World War. Yet the Allied Victory in this battle was a turning point against the Japanese in East Asia.
Post-colonial history
After the war, India moved towards independence, and the princely states which had existed alongside it became responsible for their own external affairs and defence, unless they joined the new Indian Union or Pakistan. The Manipur State Constitution Act of 1947 established a democratic form of government, with the Maharaja continuing as the head of state. Maharaja Bodhchandra was summoned to Shillong, to merge the kingdom into the Union of India. He is believed to have signed the merger agreement under duress. Thereafter, the legislative assembly was dissolved, and in October 1949 Manipur became part of India. It was made a Union Territory in 1956. and a fully-fledged state in 1972 by the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971.
Manipur has a long record of insurgency and inter-ethnic violence. Its first armed opposition group, the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), was founded in 1964 aiming to achieve independence from India and establish Manipur as a new country. Over time, many more groups formed, each with different goals, and deriving support from diverse ethnic groups in Manipur. The People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) was formed in 1977, and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in 1978, suspected by Human Rights Watch of receiving arms and training from China. In 1980, the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) was formed. These groups began a spree of bank robberies and attacks on police officers and government buildings. The state government appealed to the central government in New Delhi for support in combating this violence.
"Disturbed area" designation
From 1980 to 2004, the Indian government referred to Manipur as a disturbed area. This term (designated by the Ministry of Home Affairs or a state governor) refers to a territory where extraordinary laws under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act can be used. The laws allow the military to treat private and public spaces in the same manner, detain individuals for up to 24 hours with unlimited renewals, perform warrantless searches, and to shoot and kill individuals who break laws, carry weapons, or gather in groups larger than four. Legal immunity applies to the military. Since 1980, the application of AFSPA has been at the heart of concerns about human rights violations in the region, such as arbitrary killings, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and forced disappearances. Its continued application has led to numerous protests, notably the longstanding hunger strike by Irom Sharmila Chanu.
In 2004, the government lifted the disturbed status after a violent attack on a local woman. The rape of a Manipuri woman, Thangjam Manorama Devi, by members of the Assam Rifles paramilitary had led to wide protests including a nude protest by the Meira Paibi women's association.
2023 ethnic violence
In May 2023, an ethnic clash between Meitei people and Kuki people led to extensive violence and arson, resulting in 60,000 people displaced from their homes and hundreds more dead and hospitalized. According to data released by Manipur Police, as on September 15, 2023; 175 people have been killed; 1,118 people were injured, and 33 people were missing. 96 bodies remained unclaimed. 5,172 cases of arson including destruction of 4,786 houses and 386 religious places, out of which there were 254 churches and 132 temples, were reported since May. Out of 5,668 arms lost; 1,329 arms, 15,050 ammunition and 400 bombs were recovered. Indian army troops were deployed to control the situation. International outrage resulted from a report that two Kuki women had been paraded naked and allegedly gang-raped by a mob of Meitei men.
Geography
The state lies at a latitude of 23°83'N – 25°68'N and a longitude of 93°03'E – 94°78'E. The total area covered by the state is . The capital lies in an oval-shaped valley of approximately , surrounded by blue mountains, at an elevation of above sea level. The slope of the valley is from north to south. The mountain ranges create a moderate climate, preventing the cold winds from the north from reaching the valley and barring cyclonic storms.
The state is bordered by the Indian states of Nagaland to its north, Mizoram to its south, Assam to its west, and shares an international border with Myanmar to its east.
The state has four major river basins: the Barak River Basin (Barak Valley) to the west, the Manipur River Basin in central Manipur, the Yu River Basin in the east, and a portion of the Lanye River Basin in the north. The water resources of Barak and Manipur river basins are about 1.8487 Mham (million hectare metres). The overall water balance of the state amounts to 0.7236 Mham in the annual water budget. (By comparison, India receives 400 Mham of rain annually.)
The Barak River, the largest of Manipur, originates in the Manipur Hills and is joined by tributaries, such as the Irang, Maku, and Tuivai. After its junction with the Tuivai, the Barak River turns north, forms the border with Assam State, and then enters the Cachar Assam just above Lakhipur. The Manipur river basin has eight major rivers: the Manipur, Imphal, Iril, Nambul, Sekmai, Chakpi, Thoubal and Khuga. All these rivers originate from the surrounding hills.
Almost all the rivers in the valley area are in the mature stage and therefore deposit their sediment load in the Loktak Lake. The rivers draining the Manipur Hills are comparatively young, due to the hilly terrain through which they flow. These rivers are corrosive and become turbulent in the rainy season. Important rivers draining the western area include the Maku, Barak, Jiri, Irang, and Leimatak. Rivers draining the eastern part of the state, the Yu River Basin, include the Chamu, Khunou and other short streams.
Manipur may be characterised as two distinct physical regions: an outlying area of rugged hills and narrow valleys, and the inner area of flat plain, with all associated landforms. These two areas are distinct in physical features and are conspicuous in flora and fauna. The valley region has hills and mounds rising above the flat surface. The Loktak Lake is an important feature of the central plain. The total area occupied by all the lakes is about 600 km2. The altitude ranges from 40 m at Jiribam to 2,994 m at Mount Tempü peak along the border with Nagaland.
The soil cover can be divided into two broad types, viz. the red ferruginous soil in the hill area and the alluvium in the valley. The valley soils generally contain loam, small rock fragments, sand, and sandy clay, and are varied. On the plains, especially flood plains and deltas, the soil is quite thick. The topsoil on the steep slopes is very thin. Soil on the steep hill slopes is subject to high erosion, resulting in gullies and barren rock slopes. The normal pH value ranges from 5.4 to 6.8.
Flora
Natural vegetation occupies an area of about , nearly 64% of the total geographical area of the state, and consists of short and tall grasses, reeds and bamboos, and trees. Broadly, there are four types of forests: Tropical Semi-evergreen, Dry Temperate Forest, Sub-Tropical Pine, and Tropical Moist Deciduous.
There are forests of teak, pine, oak, uningthou, leihao, bamboo, and cane. Rubber, tea, coffee, orange, and cardamom are grown in hill areas. Rice is a staple food for Manipuris.
Climate
Manipur's climate is largely influenced by the topography of the region. Lying 790 metres above sea level, Manipur is wedged among hills on all sides. This northeastern corner of India enjoys a generally amiable climate, though the winters can be chilly. The maximum temperature in the summer months is . The coldest month is January, and the warmest July.
The state receives an average annual rainfall of between April and mid-October. Precipitation ranges from light drizzle to heavy downpour. The capital city Imphal receives an annual average of . Rainfall in this region is caused by The South Westerly Monsoon picking up moisture from the Bay of Bengal and heading towards the Eastern Himalaya ranges. This normal rainfall pattern of Manipur enriches the soil and much of the agrarian activities are dependent on it as well.
Manipur is already experiencing climate change, especially changes in weather, with both increased variability in rain as well as increasingly severe changes in temperature.
Demographics
Population
Manipur has a population of 2,855,794 as per 2011 census. Of this total, 57.2% live in the valley districts and the remaining 42.8% in the hill districts. The valley (plain) is mainly inhabited by the Meitei speaking population (native Manipuri speakers). The hills are inhabited mainly by several ethno-linguistically diverse tribes belonging to the Nagas, the Kukis and smaller tribal groupings. Naga and Kuki settlements are also found in the valley region, though less in numbers. There are also sizable population of Nepalis, Bengalis, Tamils and Marwaris living in Manipur.
The distribution of area, population and density, and literacy rate as per the 2001 Census provisional figures are as below:
People
The Meiteis (synonymous to the Manipuris) constitute the majority of the state's population. They inhabit the Imphal Valley. Nagas and Kuki-Zo are the major tribe conglomerates of tribes inhabiting the surrounding hills. The Kuki-Zos consist of several tribes including Gangte, Hmar, Paite, Simte, Sukte, Thadou, Vaiphei, Zou, and some smaller tribes. They speak Kuki-Chin languages and predominate the southern hill districts of Manipur. The prominent Naga tribes are Angami, Kabui, Kacha Naga, Mao, Maram, Poumai, Sema and Tangkhul, each speaking its own language. They predominate the northern hill districts of Manipur. In addition, several smaller tribes that were classified as "Old Kuki" by the British administrators populate Chandel and neighbouring districts. Some of them now classify themselves as Nagas while others retain the Kuki classification.
Languages
The official language of the state is Meitei (also known as Manipuri). It is a scheduled language in the Republic of India, and serves as the lingua franca in Manipur.
Other than Meitei language, in Manipur, there is a huge amount of linguistic diversity, as is the case in most of the Northeast India. Almost all of the languages are Sino-Tibetan, with many different subgroups represented. There are multiple Kuki-Chin languages, the largest being Thadou and is spoken in all the hill districts . Another major language family is the Naga languages, like Tangkhul, Poula, Rongmei and Mao. Less than 5% speak Indo-European languages, mostly Nepali and Sylheti (also considered as a dialect of Bengali), which is the major language of Jiribam district.
The Directorate of Language Planning and Implementation (AKA Department of Language Planning and Implementation) of the Government of Manipur works for the development and the promotion of Meitei language and other local vernaculars of Manipur.
Linguistic events
Meitei language day (Manipuri language day)
Meitei poetry day (Manipuri poetry day)
Meitei language movements
Meitei classical language movement (ongoing)
Meitei linguistic purism movement (ongoing)
Meitei scheduled language movement (successful)
Religion
Hinduism and Christianity are the major religions practiced in Manipur. Between the 1961 and 2011 censuses of India, the share of Hindus in the state declined from 62% to 41%, while the share of Christians rose from 19% to 41%. The religious groups of the Meitei-speaking people include Hindus, Sanamahists, Meitei Christians and Meitei Pangals. Besides these, the non Meitei-speaking communities (tribals) are mostly Christians.
Hinduism
The Meitei ethnicity (aka Manipuri people) is the majority group following Hinduism in Manipur, beside other minor immigrants following the same faith in the state. Among the indigenous communities of Manipur, Meiteis are the only Hindus as no other indigenous ethnic groups follow this faith.
According to the 2011 Census of India, about 41.39% of the Manipuri people practice Hinduism. The Hindu population is heavily concentrated in the Meitei dominant areas of the Manipur Valley (Imphal Valley), among the Meitei people. The districts of Bishnupur, Thoubal, Imphal East, and Imphal West all have Hindu majorities, averaging 67.62% (range 62.27–74.81%) according to the 2011 census data.
Vaishnavite Hinduism was the state religion of the Kingdom of Manipur. In 1704, Meitei King Charairongba accepted Vaishnavism and changed his traditional Meitei name into Hindu name, Pitambar Singh. However, the first Hindu temples were constructed much earlier. A copper plate excavated from Phayeng dating back to 763 CE (believed to be of the reign of Meitei King Khongtekcha) was found to contain inscriptions about the Hindu deities in Sanskrit words. During the 13th century, Meitei King Khumomba constructed a Lord Hanuman temple. The Vishnu temple at Lamangdong was constructed during 1474 CE (during the reign of Meitei King Kiyamba), by Brahmins immigrating from the neighborhood Shan State. As per the legends, the temple was constructed to house the Vishnu emblem given to King Kiyamba by King Khekhomba of Shan. Phurailatpam Shubhi Narayan was the first Brahmin priest of this temple.
Christianity
Christianity is the religion of 41% of the people in the state, but is the majority in rural areas with 53%, and is predominant in the hills. It was brought by Protestant missionaries to Manipur in the 19th century. In the 20th century, a few Christian schools were established, which introduced Western-type education. Christianity is the predominant religion among tribals of Manipur and tribal Christians make up the vast majority (over 96%) of the Christian population in Manipur.
Islam
The Meitei Pangals (), also known as the Meitei Muslims or the Manipuri Muslims, are the third largest religious majority group in the state as they constitute about 8.3% of the state population as per 2011 census. They belong to the Sunni group of the Hanafi school of Islamic thought and there are Arab, Bangladeshi, Turani, Bengali and Mughal or Chaghtai Turk sections among these Meitei speaking Muslims.
Sanamahism
Sanamahism (often referred to as traditional Meitei religion) is the ancient polytheistic indigenous animistic ethnic religion of the Meitei people, the predominant ethnic group of Manipur. Sanamahist worship concentrates on the household deity Lainingthou Sanamahi (often associated as well as confused with direct Sun God Korouhanba). The ancient Meiteis worshiped a Supreme deity, Salailen, and followed their ancestors. Their ancestor worship and animism was based on Umang Lai – ethnic governing deities worshiped in the sacred groves. Some of the traditional Meitei deities (Lais) are Atiya Sidaba, Pakhangba, Sanamahi, Leimaren, Panthoibi, Imoinu, Thangching (Thangjing), Marjing, Wangpulen (Wangbaren) and Koupalu (Koubru). Out of the 233,767 people who opted for the "Other religion" option, 222,315 were Sanamahists.
Other religions
The various other religions were mostly followers of tribal folk religions, 6,444 were Heraka, 2,032 were Jewish and 1,180 were from other tribal religions such as Tingkao Ragwang Chapriak.
Government
The government of Manipur is a collective assembly of 60 elected members, of which 19 are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and 1 for Scheduled Castes. The state sends two representatives to the Lok Sabha of the Parliament of India. The state sends one representative to the Rajya Sabha. The legislature of the state is Unicameral. Representatives are elected for a five-year term to the state assembly and the Indian parliament through voting, a process overseen by the offices of the Election Commission of India.
The state has one autonomous council.
Civil unrest
Social movements
There were many public movements in Manipur against the government:
Meitei classical language movement
Meitei scheduled language movement
Meitei linguistic purism movement
Security and insurgency
The violence in Manipur extends beyond the conflict between Indian security forces and insurgent armed groups. There is violence between the Meitei ethnicity, various Naga tribes, various Kuki tribes, and other tribal groups.
Splinter groups have arisen within some of the armed groups, and disagreement between them is rife. Other than the UNLF, PLA, and PREPAK, Manipuri insurgent groups include the Revolutionary Peoples Front (RPF), Manipur Liberation Front Army (MLFA), Kanglei Yawol Kanba Lup (KYKL), Revolutionary Joint Committee (RJC), Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), Peoples United Liberation Front (PULF), Manipur Naga People Front (MNPF), National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-K), National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-I/M), United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF), Kuki National Front (KNF), Kuki National Army (KNA), Kuki Defence Force (KDF), Kuki Democratic Movement (KDM), Kuki National Organisation (KNO), Kuki Security Force (KSF), Chin Kuki Revolutionary Front (CKRF), Kom Rem Peoples Convention (KRPC), Zomi Revolutionary Volunteers (ZRV), Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZRA), Zomi Reunification Organisation (ZRO), and Hmar Peoples Convention (HPC).
The Meitei insurgent groups seek independence from India. The Kuki insurgent groups want a separate state for the Kukis to be carved out from the present state of Manipur. The Kuki insurgent groups are under two umbrella organisations: the Kuki National Organisation (KNO) and United Peoples Forum. The Nagas wish to annex part of Manipur and merge with a greater Nagaland or Nagalim, which is in conflict with Meitei insurgent demands for the integrity of their vision of an independent state. There have been many tensions between the tribes and numerous clashes between Naga and Kukis, Meiteis and Muslims.
According to SATP in 2014, there had been a dramatic decline in fatalities in Manipur since 2009. In 2009, 77 civilians died (about 3 per 100,000 people). From 2010 onward, about 25 civilians have died in militant-related violence (about 1 per 100,000 people), dropping further to 21 civilian deaths in 2013 (or 0.8 per 100,000 people). However, there were 76 explosions in 2013 compared to 107 in 2012. Different groups have claimed responsibility for the explosions, some claiming they were targeting competing militant groups, others claiming their targets were state and central government officials.
As a point of comparison, the average annual global rate of violent death between 2004 and 2009 was 7.9 per 100,000 people.
Economy
The 2012–2013 gross state domestic product of Manipur at market prices was about . Its economy is primarily agriculture, forestry, cottage and trade driven. Manipur acts as India's "Gateway to the East" through Moreh and Tamu towns, the land route for trade between India and Burma and other countries in Southeast Asia, East Asia, Siberia, the Arctic, Micronesia and Polynesia. Manipur has the highest number of handicraft units and the highest number of craftspersons in the northeastern region of India.
Electricity
Manipur produced about of electricity in 2010 with its infrastructure. The state has hydroelectric power generation potential, estimated to be over . As of 2010, if half of this potential is realised, it is estimated that this would supply 24/7 electricity to all residents, with a surplus for sale, as well as supplying the Burma power grid.
Agriculture
Manipur's climate and soil conditions make it ideally suited for horticultural crops. Growing there are rare and exotic medicinal and aromatic plants. Some cash crops suited for Manipur include Lychee, Cashew, Walnut, Orange, Lemon, Pineapple, Papaya, Passion Fruit, Peach, Pear and Plum. The state is covered with over of bamboo forests, making it one of India's largest contributor to its bamboo industry.
Agriculture in Manipur includes a number of smallholding farms, many of whom are owned by women. Climate change, especially changes in temperature and weather are hurting small farmers in the state. Like rural women in other parts of the world, women in agriculture in Manipur are harmed more by the changes in weather, because of less access to support from local governments.
Transportation infrastructure
Tulihal Airport, Changangei, Imphal, the only airport of Manipur, connects directly with Delhi, Kolkata, Guwahati, and Agartala. It has been upgraded to an international airport. As India's second largest airport in the northeast, it serves as a key logistical centre for northeastern states. The Tulihal Airport has been renamed Bir Tikendrajit Airport. National Highway NH-39 links Manipur with the rest of the country through the railway stations at Dimapur in Nagaland at a distance of from Imphal.
National Highway 53 (India) connects Manipur with another railway station at Silchar in Assam, which is away from Imphal. The road network of Manipur, with a length of connects all the important towns and distant villages. However, the road condition throughout the state is often deplorable. In 2010, Indian government announced that it is considering an Asian infrastructure network from Manipur to Vietnam. The proposed Trans-Asian Railway (TAR), if constructed, will pass through Manipur, connecting India to Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
Tourism
The tourist season is from October to February when it is often sunny without being hot and humid. The culture features martial arts, dance, theatre and sculpture. Greenery accompanies a moderate climate. The seasonal Shirui Lily plant at Ukhrul (district), Dzüko Valley at Senapati, Sangai (Brow antlered deer) and the floating islands at Loktak Lake are among the rarities of the area. Polo, which can be called a royal game, originated in Manipur.
UNESCO list
The Keibul Lamjao National Park (KLNP), which is the world's only floating national park, located in the Loktak lake, is under the tentative lists of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, under the title "Keibul Lamjao Conservation Area (KLCA)", additionally covering the buffer of Loktak Lake (140 sq km) and Pumlen Pat (43 sq. km), besides the 40 sq km of the KLNP.
The Kangla (officially called the Kangla Fort), which was the historic seat of administration of the Meitei rulers of Manipur Kingdom, is also moved in the Indian Parliament, to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.
Imphal (capital)
The city is inhabited by the Meitei people and other communities. The city contains the Tulihal Airport. The district is divided into East and West. The Khuman Lampak Sports Complex was built for the 1997 National Games. The stadium is used for a sports venue. It also contains a cyclists' velodrome. Most of the imported goods are sold at Paona Bazaar, Gambhir Singh Shopping Complex and Leima Plaza. Kangla Fort, Marjing Polo Statue, Sanamahi Kiyong, Ima Market, Samban-Lei Sekpil, Shree Govindajee Temple, Andro village, and Manipur State Museum are in the city.
Lakes and islands
from Imphal, lies the largest fresh water lake in northeast India, the Loktak Lake, a miniature inland sea. There is a tourist bungalow atop Sendra Island. Life on the lake includes small islands that are floating weed on which live the lake people, the blue waters of the lake, and colourful water plants. There is a Sendra tourist home with an attached cafeteria in the middle of the lake. Floating islands are made out of the tangle of watery weeds and other plants. The wetland is swampy and is favourable for a number of species. It is in the district of Bishnupur. The etymology of Loktak is "lok = stream / tak = the end" (End of the Streams). Sendra park and resort is opening on the top of Sendra hills and attracting the tourist.
Hills and valleys
Kaina is a hillock about above sea level. It is a sacred place for Manipuri Hindus. The legend is that, Shri Govindajee appeared in the dream of his devotee, Shri Jai Singh Maharaja, and asked the saintly king to install in a temple, an image of Shri Govindajee. It was to be carved out of a jack fruit tree, which was then growing at Kaina. It is from Imphal. The Dzüko Valley is in Senapati district bordering with Kohima. There are seasonal flowers and number of flora and fauna. It is at an altitude of above sea level, behind Mount Japfü in Nagaland. The rare Dzüko lily is found only in this valley.
Eco tourism
Keibul Lamjao National Park, away from Imphal is an abode of the rare and endangered species of brow antlered deer. This ecosystem contains 17 rare species of mammals. It is the only floating national park of the world.
to the west of Imphal, at the foot of the pine growing hillocks at Iroisemba on the Imphal-Kangchup Road are the Zoological Gardens. Some brow antlered deer (Sangai) are housed there.
Waterfalls
Sadu Chiru waterfall is near Ichum Keirap village from Imphal, in the Sadar hill area, Senapati district. This consists of three falls with the first fall about high. Agape Park is in the vicinity.
Natural caves
Thalon Cave (around above sea level) is one of the historical sites of Manipur under Tamenglong district. It is around from the state capital and around from Tamenglong district headquarters in north side. From Thalon village, this cave is . Khangkhui Cave is a natural limestone cave in Ukhrul district. The big hall in the cave is the darbar hall of the Devil King living deep inside while the northern hall is the royal bedroom, according to local folklore. During World War II, villagers sought shelter here. This cave is an hour's trek from Khangkui village.
Education
Manipur schools are run by the state and central government or by private organisation. Instruction is mainly in English. Under the 10+2+3 plan, students may enroll in general or professional degree programs after passing the Higher Secondary Examination (the grade 12 examination). The main universities are Manipur University, Central Agricultural University, National Institute of Technology, Manipur, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Manipur, Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences, Regional Institute of Medical Sciences and Indira Gandhi National Tribal University.
Manipur is home to India's first floating elementary school: Loktak Elementary Floating School in Loktak Lake.
Transportation
Air
Imphal International Airport is situated in the capital Imphal which connects direct flights from Imphal to Kolkata, Guwahati, New Delhi, Bangalore and Agartala.
Roadways
Manipur is connected to all its neighbouring states with National Highways.
Rail
Manipur has one operational railway station, Jiribam. Imphal railway station, is an under-construction railway station in Imphal, the capital of Manipur.
Art and Culture
Secular theatre is mostly confined to themes that are not religious; it is performed in the secular or profane spheres. In these are Shumang lila and Phampak lila (stage drama). Shumang lila is very popular. Etymologically Shumang lila is the combination of "Shumang" (courtyard) and "Lila" (play or performance). It is performed in an area of 13×13 ft in the centre of any open space, in a very simple style without a raised stage, set design, or heavy props such as curtains, background scenery, and visual effects. It uses one table and two chairs, kept on one side of the performance space. Its claim as the "theatre of the masses" is underlined by the way it is performed in the middle of an audience that surrounds it, leaving one passage as entrance and exit.
The world of Phampak lila (stage drama) performed in the proscenium theatre is similar, in form, to the Western theatrical model and Indian Natyasastra model though its contents are indigenous. The so-called modern theatre descended on Manipur theatre culture with the performance of Pravas Milan (1902) under the enthusiastic patronage of Sir Churchand Maharaj (1891–1941). The pace of theatrical movement was geared up with the institution of groups such as Manipur Dramatic Union (MDU) (1930), Arian Theatre (1935), Chitrangada Natya Mandir (1936), Society Theatre (1937), Rupmahal (1942), Cosmopolitan Dramatic Union (1968), and the Chorus Repertory Theatre of Ratan Thiyam (1976). These groups started experimenting with types of plays apart from historical and Puranic ones. Today Manipur theatre is well respected because of excellent productions shown in India and abroad. Manipur plays, both Shumang lila and stage lila, have been a regular feature in the annual festival of the National School of Drama, New Delhi.
Iskcon led by Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Swami started a network of schools in Northeastern India, where more than 4,000 students receive education centred on Vaishnava spiritual values. In 1989 he founded "Ranganiketan Manipuri Cultural Arts Troupe", which has approximately 600 performances at over 300 venues in over 15 countries. Ranganiketan (literally "House of Colorful Arts") is a group of more than 20 dancers, musicians, singers, martial artists, choreographers, and craft artisans. Some of them have received international acclaim.
Manipur dance (Ras Lila)
Manipuri dance also known as Jagoi, is one of the major Indian classical dance forms, named after the state of Manipur. It is particularly known for its Hindu Vaishnavism themes, and exquisite performances of love-inspired dance drama of Radha-Krishna called Raslila. However, the dance is also performed to themes related to Shaivism, Shaktism and regional deities such as Umang Lai during Lai Haraoba. The roots of Manipur dance, as with all classical Indian dances, is the ancient Hindu Sanskrit text Natya Shastra, but with influences from the culture fusion between India and Southeast Asia, East Asia, Siberia, Micronesia and Polynesia.
Chorus Repertory Theatre
The auditorium of the theatre is on the outskirts of Imphal and the campus stretches for about . It has housing and working quarters to accommodate self-sufficiency of life. The theatre association has churned out internationally acclaimed plays like Chakravyuha and Uttarpriyadashi. Its 25 years of existence in theatre had disciplined its performers to a world of excellence. Chakravyuha taken from the Mahabharat epic had won Fringe Firsts Award, 1987 at the Edinburgh International Theater Festival. Chakravyuha deals with the story of Abhimanyu (son of Arjun) of his last battle and approaching death, whereas Uttarpriyadashi is an 80-minute exposition of Emperor Ashoka's redemption.
Sports
Mukna is a popular form of wrestling. Mukna Kangjei, or Khong Kangjei, is a game which combines the arts of mukna (wrestling hockey) and Kangjei (Cane Stick) to play the ball made of seasoned bamboo roots.
Yubi lakpi is a traditional full contact game played in Manipur, India, using a coconut, which has some notable similarities to rugby. Yubi lakpi literally means "coconut snatching". The coconut is greased to make it slippery. There are rules of the game, as with all Manipur sports. The coconut serves the purpose of a ball and is offered to the king, the chief guest or the judges before the game begins. The aim is to run while carrying the greased coconut and physically cross over the goal line, while the other team tackles and blocks any such attempt as well as tries to grab the coconut and score on its own. In Manipur's long history, Yubi lakpi was the annual official game, attended by the king, over the Hindu festival of Shree Govindajee. It is like the game of rugby, or American football.
Oolaobi (Woo-Laobi) is an outdoor game mainly played by females. Meitei mythology believes that UmangLai Heloi-Taret (seven deities–seven fairies) played this game on the Courtyard of the temple of Umang Lai Lairembi. The number of participants is not fixed but are divided into two groups (size as per agreement). Players are divided as into Raiders (Attackers) or Defenders (Avoiders). Hiyang Tannaba, also called Hi Yangba Tanaba, is a traditional boat rowing race and festivity of the Panas.
Polo
The origin of modern polo can be traced to Manipur where the world's oldest polo ground lies, Imphal Polo Ground. Captain Robert Stewart and Lieutenant Joseph Sherer of the British colonial era first watched locals play a rules-based pulu or sagolkangjei (literally, horse and stick) game in 1859. They adopted its rules, calling the game polo, and playing it on their horses. The game spread among the British in Calcutta and then to England.
Apart from these games, some outdoor children's games are fading in popularity. Some games such as Khutlokpi, Phibul Thomba, and Chaphu Thugaibi remain very popular elsewhere, such as in Cambodia. They are played especially during the Khmer New Year.
First of its kind in India, National Sports University will be constructed in Manipur.
Festivals
The festivals of Manipur are Lui-ngai-ni Ningol Chakouba, Shirui Lily festival, Yaoshang, Gan-ngai, Chumpha, Cheiraoba, Kang and Heikru Hidongba, as well as the broader religious festivals Eid-Ul-Fitr, Eid-Ul-Adha and Christmas. Most of these festivals are celebrated on the basis of the lunar calendar. Almost every festival celebrated in other states of India is observed.
On 21 November 2017, the Sangai Festival 2017 was inaugurated by President Ram Nath Kovind in Manipur. Held for 10 days, the festival is named after Manipur's state animal, the brow-antlered Sangai deer. The Sangai Festival showcases the tourism potential of Manipur in the field of arts and culture, handloom, handicrafts, indigenous sports, cuisine, music and adventure sports.
Sangai festival
Ningol Chakouba
Held on 9 November, this is a social festival of the Meitei people of Manipur where married women (Ningol) are invited (Chakouba, literally calling to a meal; for dinner or lunch) to a feast at their parental house accompanied by their children. Besides the feast, gifts are given to the women/invitees and to their children. It is the festival that binds and revives the family relations between the women married away and the parental family. Nowadays, other communities have started celebrating this kind of a family-bonding festival.
Kut
Held after the Harvest festival in November, this festival predominantly celebrated by Kuki-Chin-Mizo tribes in Manipur has become one of the leading festivals of the state. Kut is not restricted to a community or tribe — the whole state populace participates in merriment. On 1 November of every year, the state declared holiday for Kut celebration.
Yaosang
Held in February or March, Yaosang is considered to be one of the biggest festivals of Manipur. It is the Holi festival (festival of colour) but Yaosang is the regional name given by the people of Manipur.
Khuado Pawi
Khuado Pawi is the harvest festival of the Tedim people who were recognised as Sukte and Zomi in India and Myanmar respectively. The word Pawi means festival in Tedim Zomi language. It is celebrated every year in the month of September–October after harvesting.
Cheiraoba
Also known as Sajibugi Nongma Panba and held in March or April, Cheiraoba is the new year of Manipur. It is observed on the first lunar day of the lunar month Sajibu (March/April) and so it is also popularly known as Sajibu Cheiraoba. People of Manipur immaculate and decorate their houses and make a sumptuous variety of dishes to feast upon after offering food to the deity on this day. After the feast, as a part of the ritual, people climb hilltops; in the belief that it would excel them to greater heights in their worldly life.
Gaan-Ngai
Gaan-Ngai is the greatest festival of the Zeliangrong people. It is a five-day festival and is usually performed on the 13th day of the Meitei month of Wakching.
Notable people
Kuki–Zo
Mary Kom
Meitei
Naga
See also
Human rights abuses in Manipur
Outline of Manipur
Tourist Attractions in Manipur
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
External links
Government
Official Tourism Site of Manipur
General information
States and union territories of India
Northeast India
States and territories established in 1972
Tourism in Northeast India |
422674 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg%20Battlefield | Gettysburg Battlefield | The Gettysburg Battlefield is the area of the July 1–3, 1863, military engagements of the Battle of Gettysburg within and around the borough of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Locations of military engagements extend from the site of the first shot at Knoxlyn Ridge on the west of the borough, to East Cavalry Field on the east. A military engagement prior to the battle was conducted at the Gettysburg Railroad trestle over Rock Creek, which was burned on June 27.
Geography
Within of the Maryland/Pennsylvania state line, the Gettysburg battlefield is situated in the Gettysburg-Newark Basin of the Pennsylvania Piedmont entirely within the Potomac River Watershed near the Marsh and Rock creeks' triple point with the Susquehanna River Watershed (near Oak Hill) occupying an area . Military engagements occurred within and around the borough of Gettysburg (1863 pop. 2,400), which remains the population center for the battlefield area at the intersections of roads that connect the borough with 10 nearby Pennsylvania and Maryland towns (e.g., antebellum turnpikes to Chambersburg, York, and Baltimore.)
Topography
The battle began on the west at Lohr's, Whistler's, School-House, and Knoxlyn ridges between Cashtown and Gettysburg. Nearer to Gettysburg, dismounted Union cavalry defended McPherson's Ridge and Herr's Ridge, and eventually infantry support arrived to defend Seminary Ridge at the borough's west side. Oak Ridge, a northward extension of both McPherson Ridge and Seminary Ridge, is capped by Oak Hill, a site for artillery that commanded a good area north of the town. Prior to Pickett's Charge, "159 guns stretching in a long line from the Peach Orchard to Oak Hill were to open simultaneously".
Directly south of the town is the gently-sloped Cemetery Hill named for the 1854 Evergreen Cemetery on its crest and where the 1863 Gettysburg Address dedicated the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Eastward are Culp's Hill and Steven's Knoll. Cemetery Hill and Culp's Hill were subjected to assaults throughout the battle by Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps. Cemetery Ridge extends about south from Cemetery Hill.
Southward from Cemetery Hill is Cemetery Ridge of only about 40 feet (12 m) above the surrounding terrain. The ridge includes The Angle's stone wall and the copse of trees at the High-water mark of the Confederacy during Pickett's Charge. The southern end of Cemetery Ridge is Weikert Hill, north of Little Round Top.
The two highest battlefield points are at Round Top to the south with the higher round summit of Big Round Top, the lower oval summit of Little Round Top, and a saddle between. The Round Tops are rugged and strewn with large boulders; as is Devil's Den to the west. [Big] Round Top, known also to locals of the time as Sugar Loaf, is higher than its Little companion. Its steep slopes are heavily wooded, which made it unsuitable for siting artillery without a large effort to climb the heights with horse-drawn guns and clear lines of fire; Little Round Top was unwooded, but its steep and rocky form made it difficult to deploy artillery in mass. However, Cemetery Hill was an excellent site for artillery, commanding all of the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge and the approaches to them. Little Round Top and Devil's Den were key locations for General John Bell Hood's division in Longstreet's assault during the second day of battle, July 2, 1863. The Plum Run Valley between Houck's Ridge and the Round Tops earned the name Valley of Death on that day.
Borough areas of military engagements
The area of the military engagements during the battle included the majority of the 1863 town area and the current borough area. The broadest regions of borough military engagements are the combat area of the Union retreat while being pursued on July 1, as well as the burg's area over which artillery rounds were fired. Confederate artillery fired from Oak Hill southeastward onto the retreated Union line extending east-to-west from Culp's Hill to the west side of Cemetery Hill, and Union artillery on Cemetery Hill fired on the railway cut (including Wiedrich's battery ~5 pm). Smaller engagements in the town included those with some federals remaining in/near structures after the retreat (e.g., wounded soldiers not willing to surrender). The largest engagement within the current borough was at Coster Avenue (north of the 1863 town) in which Early's division defeated Coster's brigade. The town was generally held by the Confederate provost and used by snipers after the dawn of July 2 (e.g., a brickyard behind the McCreary House, the John Rupp Tannery on Baltimore St, and a church belfry). A Confederate skirmish line at Breckenridge Street faced Federals on Cemetery Hill, and ~7 pm July 1, "the Confederate line of battle had been formed on East and West Middle Streets".
History
At the close of the battle, some of the ~22,000 wounded remained on the battlefield and were subsequently treated at the outlying Camp Letterman hospital or nearby field hospitals, houses, churches, and other buildings. Dead soldiers on the battlefield totaled 8,900; and contractors such as David Warren were hired to bury men and animals (the majority near where they fell). Samuel Weaver oversaw all of these reburials. The first excursion train arrived with battlefield visitors on July 5.
On July 10, Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin visited Gettysburg and expressed the state's interest in finding the fallen veterans a resting place. Attorney David Wills arranged for the purchase of of Cemetery Hill battlefield land for a cemetery. On August 14, 1863, attorney David McConaughy recommended a preservation association to sell membership stock for battlefield fundraising. By September 16, 1863, battlefield protection had begun with McConaughy's purchase of "the heights of Cemetery Hill and" Little Round Top, and his total purchased area of included Culp's Hill land.
On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery, which was completed in March 1864 with the last of 3,512 Union reburied. From 1870 to 1873, upon the initiative of the Ladies Memorial Associations of Richmond, Raleigh, Savannah, and Charleston, 3,320 bodies were disinterred and sent to cemeteries in those cities for reburial, 2,935 being interred in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond. Seventy-three bodies were reburied in home cemeteries. The cemetery was transferred to the United States government May 1872, and the last Battle of Gettysburg body was reburied in the national cemetery after being discovered in 1997.
Union Gettysburg veteran Emmor Cope was detailed to annotate the battlefield's troop positions and his "Map of the Battlefield of Gettysburg from the original survey made August to October, 1863" was displayed at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Also in 1863, John B. Bachelder escorted convalescing officers at Gettysburg to identify battlefield locations (during the next winter he interviewed Union officers about Gettysburg).
Memorial association era
See also List of monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield
The 1864 Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association (GBMA) added to McConaughy's land holdings and operated a wooden observation tower on East Cemetery Hill from 1878 to 1895. Post-war, John Bachelder invited over 1,000 officers, including 49 generals, to revisit the field with him. Bachelder also produced a battlefield survey with 1880 federal funds (initiated by Senator Wade Hampton III, a Confederate general). The GBMA approved and disapproved various monuments and in 1888 planted trees at Zeigler's Grove. The 1st battlefield monument was an 1867 marble urn in the National Cemetery dedicated to the 1st Minnesota Infantry, and the 1st memorial outside of the cemetery was the 1878 Strong Vincent tablet on Little Round Top. By May 1887 there were 90 regimental and battery monuments on the battlefield, and the first bronze monument on the battlefield was Reynolds' 1872 statue in the cemetery. The only two Confederate monuments inside the Union areas of battle held are an 1887 plaque near The Angle commemorating Gen Armistead's farthest advance on July 3 and the 1884 2nd Maryland Infantry monument on Culp's Hill.
The battlefield was used by the 1884 Camp Gettysburg and other summer encampments of the PA National Guard. Commercial development in the 19th century included the 1884 Round Top Branch of railroad to Round Top, Pennsylvania, and after March 1892, Tipton Park operated in the Slaughter Pen—which was at a trolley station of the Gettysburg Electric Railway that operated from 1894 to 1916.
The federal Gettysburg National Park Commission was established on March 3, 1893; after which Congressman Daniel Sickles initiated a May 31, 1894, resolution “to acquire by purchase (or by condemnation) … such lands, or interests in lands, upon or in the vicinity of said battle field. The memorial association era ended in 1895 when the "Sickles Gettysburg Park Bill" (28 Stat. 651) designated the Gettysburg National Military Park (GNMP) under the War Department. Subsequent battlefield improvements included the October 1895 construction of the War Department's observation towers to replace the 1878 Cemetery Hill tower and an 1881 Big Round Top tower.
Commemorative era
See also List of monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield
For payment of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association's debts of $1960.46, on February 4, 1896, the War Department acquired 124 GBMA tracts totaling , including 320 monuments and about of roads. Commercial development after Tipton Park was abolished in the fall of 1901 included the July 1902 Hudson Park picnic grove north of Little Round Top (including a boxing arena). A dancing pavilion was erected at the Round Top Museum in 1902, and in the saddle area between the Round Tops, David Weikert operated an eating house moved from Tipton Park after it was seized in 1901 by eminent domain. Landscape preservation began in 1883 when peach trees were planted in the Peach Orchard, and 20,000 battlefield trees were planted in 1906 (trees are periodically removed from battlefield areas that had been logged prior to the battle.)
Battlefield visitors through the early 20th century typically arrived by train at the borough's 1884 Gettysburg & Harrisburg RR Station or the 1859 Gettysburg Railroad Station and used horse-drawn jitneys to tour the battlefield. The borough licensed automobile taxis first in 1913, and the War Department expanded the battlefield roads throughout the commemorative era. Early 20th century battlefield excursions included those by "The Hod Carriers Consolidated Union of Baltimore" and the annual "Topton Day" autumn foliage tours from near Berks County, Pennsylvania.
Veterans reunions included the 1888 25th battle anniversary, a 1906 ceremony to return Gen Armistead's sword to the South. and 53,407 civil war veterans attending the 1913 Gettysburg reunion for the 50th anniversary. The battlefield had a 1912 airfield at Camp Stuart and a WWI Tank Corps center at Brevet Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower's 1918 Camp Colt, and excursions to the Round Top Park brought alcohol and prostitution. The 1922 Camp Harding included a Marine Corps reenactment of Pickett's Charge observed by President Warren Harding and a next-day simulation of the same attack with modern weapons and tactics.
The battlefield's commemorative era ended in 1927, and use of the national park for military camps continued under an 1896 federal law (29 Stat. 120), e.g., a 1928 artillery and cavalry camp was held at Culp's Hill in conjunction with President Calvin Coolidge's Memorial Day address in the cemetery's rostrum.
Development era
In 1933, administration of the GNMP transferred to the 1916 National Park Service (NPS), which initiated Great Depression projects including 1933 Civil Works Administration improvements, and two Civilian Conservation Corps camps were subsequently built for battlefield maintenance and construction projects. After a 1933 comfort station had been built at The Pennsylvania State Memorial, similar stone Parkitecture structures were built (the west ranger station was completed May 21, 1937), and in April 1938, the Works Progress Administration added battlefield parking areas. Numerous commercial facilities were also developed on private battlefield land, particularly during the 1950s "Golden Age of Capitalism" in the United States (e.g., motels, eateries, & visitor attractions).
The battlefield's 2nd largest monument, the Eternal Light Peace Memorial, was accepted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and unveiled at the 1938 Gettysburg reunion that attracted over 300,000 battlefield visitors. In 1939, the 1st of the Gettysburg National Museum's 14 expansions was completed (the electric map auditorium was added in 1963 and closed April 13, 2008). Pitzer Woods was the site of the World War II Camp Sharpe, and McMillan Woods had a German POW camp (the latter was used for post-war housing of migrant workers for local production). Heads-of-state at the battlefield included a 1943 Winston Churchill auto tour with President Roosevelt, President Eisenhower escorting President Charles De Gaulle (1960), and President Jimmy Carter hosting President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin (1978).
The 1956 Mission 66 plan for the 1966 NPS 50th anniversary included restoring battlefield houses, resurfacing of avenues, replacing the railway cut bridge, and restoring the 1884 Gettysburg Cyclorama.
1962–present
As the Mission 66 Cyclorama Building at Gettysburg with a new battlefield observation deck was being completed in 1962, the nearby 1896 Zeigler's Grove observation tower was removed (the 1895 Big Round Top observation tower was removed in 1968). In 1967, the NPS purchased the 1921 Gettysburg National Museum, which the NPS operated from 1971-2008. Also in 1971, the NPS acquired Round Top Station and the Round Top Museum, using the latter as an environmental resource center until demolished 1982. The private Gettysburg National Tower of was completed in 1974 to provide several observation levels for viewing the battlefield, but was purchased under eminent domain and demolished in 2000. In the Devil's Den area, trees were removed in 2007, and the comfort station was razed April 8, 2010. Similarly, the Gettysburg National Museum was demolished in 2008.
In 2008, the Gettysburg National Military Park had 1,320 monuments, 410 cannon, 148 historic buildings, 2½ observation towers, and of avenues, roads, and lanes; (8 unpaved). "one of the largest collections of outdoor sculpture in the world."
In February 2013 the landmark modernist Cyclorama Building and Visitor Center, designed by renowned architect Richard Neutra, was destroyed. The 19th century Gettysburg Cyclorama depicting the battlefield had previously been removed for restoration, and was reinstalled in the new rustic style Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center.
The Gettysburg National Military Park receives an annual 3 million visitors per year.
The American Battlefield Trust and its partners have acquired and preserved of the overall battlefield in more than 35 separate transactions since 1997. Some of the land has been sold or conveyed to the National Park Service to be incorporated into the national park, but other land acquisitions are outside the official, federally established, current park boundary and thus cannot become part of the park. This includes the headquarters of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, one of the Trust's most significant and expensive acquisitions. In 2015, the Trust paid $6 million for a four-acre parcel that included the stone house that Lee used as his headquarters during the battle. The Trust razed a motel, restaurant and other buildings within the parcel to restore the site to its wartime appearance, added interpretive signs and opened the site to the public in October, 2016.
See also
Gettysburg Battlefield Historic District
List of monuments of the Gettysburg Battlefield
References
G.
N.
Gettysburg campaign
Battlefields of the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War
History of Adams County, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania in the American Civil War
Geography of Adams County, Pennsylvania
Tourist attractions in Adams County, Pennsylvania
Protected areas of Adams County, Pennsylvania |
422678 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rozz%20Williams | Rozz Williams | Rozz Williams (born Roger Alan Painter; November 6, 1963 – April 1, 1998) was an American singer and songwriter known for his work with the bands Christian Death, Shadow Project (with musician Eva O), and the industrial project Premature Ejaculation. Christian Death is cited by some as a pioneer of the American gothic rock scene as well as deathrock, and is considered to be one of the most influential figures of the scene. However, Williams disliked the "goth" label and actively worked to shed it during the 1980s and 1990s by focusing on punk rock, hard rock, cabaret, and spoken word music. Williams was also involved with his groups Daucus Karota, Heltir, EXP, Bloodflag, and his own version of Christian Death (Christian Death featuring Rozz Williams), along with recording a handful of solo albums. In addition to music, Williams was also an avid painter, poet, and collage artist.
Williams committed suicide by hanging himself in his West Hollywood apartment on April 1, 1998. He was 34 years old.
Early life
Rozz Williams was born Roger Alan Painter on November 6, 1963, in Pomona, California, and was raised in a strict Southern Baptist family. His father Robert Norman Painter was an artist. Rozz had three older siblings (Janet, Bobby, and Larry). After being expelled from his high school in Pomona for lack of attendance, he transferred to Claremont High School, where he was again expelled during his ninth grade.
As a child, he was a fan of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Roxy Music, T. Rex, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop and the New York Dolls.
Career
Early bands
At the age of fifteen, Painter formed his first band the A-Sexuals. In an interview with Nico B, Jill Emery stated of the A-Sexuals: "I thought it was funny because considering we were kind of coming out of the closet to a degree and we were, and in my mind later in life, like even last year, why can't the asexuals – and I don't mean the band; I mean in general — be in the gay parade too? Why can't they be in the back of it? Like, they are people too, and they have their preference, but it's just funny. We were just kids. We weren't that straight edge". In addition to being the lead vocalist, he played the organ and guitar, with Jill Emery also contributing vocals as well as playing bass, and Steve Darrow on drums. The A-Sexuals disbanded after a few months, with Emery and Darrow morphing the band into the Decadents at the end of 1978.
Following this, Painter became friends with John "Jay" Albert, with whom he would attempt to form several bands with under names including No and the Crawlers. These groups never performed live and most rarely even rehearsed. In Mikey Bean's book Phantoms, Albert called them "nonexistent band[s]". Around this time, Painter began an intimate relationship with Darby Crash, vocalist of the Germs, under whose influence he decided to take a stage name. There exists an urban myth that the name "Rozz Williams" was derived from a gravestone in Pemona, however in Phantoms, Albert, Darrow and George Belanger claim that this is untrue, with Belanger stating that the first name came as a suggestion from their friend Ann Miller.
Christian Death
Albert and Williams formed Christian Death in October 1979 alongside bassist James McGearty and drummer George Belanger. At this time, the band was a punk rock band musically indebted to the Germs. As the band progressed their music slowed and began to incorporate religious symbolism. Their first live performance was an impromptu set at the Hong Kong Cafe in Los Angeles supporting Castration Squad, replacing Killer Pussy after they were booed off stage.
After a physical altercation involving Belanger took place, he was left unable to play drums for their upcoming at on February 14, 1981. Williams asked Steve Darrow to fill in, however Belanger decided moments before their set to still try and play, leading to Belanger performing the first few songs then Darrow finishing the set. This incident angered Albert, who left the band permanently mid-set. Subsequently, Christian Death was halted, with Albert and Williams forming noise band Daucus Karota with drummer Mary Torcivia. Williams, McGearty and Belanger regrouped a few months later, now accompanied by guitarist Rikk Agnew, who had just left the Adolescents. With this lineup, they made their first vinyl appearance with the song "Dogs" on the 1981 L.A. scene compilation album Hell Comes to Your House. The following year, they signed with Frontier Records and released their debut studio album, Only Theatre of Pain, on March 24.
The following year Belanger left the band after becoming disheartened by the growing darkness of the band's image and increasing drug abuse. Belanger's role was filled by Rod "China" Figueroa, whose first performance with the band was a record signing on April 10, 1982. Later that year, while the band were getting ready for a domestic tour, Agnew, distressed by his own drug use and troubles in his relationship, began to experience panicked episodes where he would imagine Williams and his boyfriend Ron Athey being subject to homophobic attacks in Southern states and the band being arrested for drug possession. This culminated in him leaving the band as they were preparing to go on stage. The band then hired Mikaleno Amundson to play guitar, who moved in with Figueroa. However, when Amundson and Figueroas' girlfriends fell out with each other, Amundson was forced to move out and leave the band after "about three to five shows." Because of this, Eva O briefly became the band's guitarist. On October 30, 1982, this lineup opened for Angelic Upstarts at SIR Studios alongside Pompeii 99. Following this, Michael Montano and Johnnie Sage both began playing guitar in the band, and they played again with Pompeii 99. By the end of the year, McGearty had left the band. With Williams as the only founding member remaining, Christian Death disbanded.
Around this point, Pompeii 99 too were going through a number of lineup changes. Subsequently, six months after Christian Death's disbandment, Williams joined Pompeii 99, which at that time consisted of only guitarist and vocalist Valor Kand and drummer David "Glass" Parkinson. Under Williams' suggestion, the band's session keyboard player and Kand's partner Gitane DeMone officially joined the band. After Williams was approached by Yann Farcy of French record label L'Invitation au Suicide to record another Christian Death album and tour Europe, the band hired bassist Constance Smith (later Redgrave) and changed their name to Christian Death. This culminated in Christian Death's second studio album Catastrophe Ballet (1984). Recorded at Rockfield studios in Monmouth, Wales, much of this album's instrumentals were written by Kand, with Williams contributing entirely to lyrics and partially to melody writing. It was a departure the band's angry punk influenced style and was dedicated to surrealist André Breton. While in France, Smith departed from the group due to a mental health struggle, being replaced by Dave Roberts of Sex Gang Children.
In autumn 1984 the band returned to America and recorded Ashes, which was released the following year. In mid-1985, Williams departed from the group, frustrated by Kand's increasing control of the band and perceived disregard for how touring affected the members' ventures outside of music. He originally planned to do this under the pretext that DeMone would also be leaving, however she soon decided not to, as that would also mean separating Kand from their child together. Following Williams' departure, the remaining members made an effort to change the band's name to Sin and Sacrifice, transitioning to that name through booking their next tour as the Sin and Sacrifice of Christian Death. However, the promoters did not adhere to this change, instead having them booked as simply Christian Death. This issue then became exacerbated once they were offered a record deal which they could only accept if they continued on as Christian Death.
Williams recorded for Cleopatra Records in 1992. Williams had been the only original member of Christian Death left when he departed the group in 1985, yet the remaining members continued to perform earlier Christian Death material and released several albums under the original group name.
Williams had already recorded two more songs, "Haloes" and "Spectre (Love Is Dead)", with Eric Westfall, but these were not officially released for five years. The songs appeared on the Heavens and Hells cassettes, which also included live performances Williams selected from his own tapes. A third, unfinished song from the session with Eric Westfall was called "This Mirage". This was only completed many years after, with assistance from Erik Christides, and released for the first time in 1998.
Premature Ejaculation, Shadow Project and Christian Death featuring Rozz Williams
Williams formed Premature Ejaculation in 1981 with performance artist Ron Athey. After only a few live performances, including one which involved Athey eating a crucified road-kill cat, clubs began refusing to book them.
Williams formed Shadow Project with Eva O in 1987, The band lineup included Johann Schumann (bass) and also Barry Galvin and David Glass, both of whom also recorded with post Ashes-era Christian Death. The name "Shadow Project" was taken from the tests in Hiroshima following the nuclear bomb which left impressions or "shadows", but no bodies.
Later on, Williams reformed Shadow Project with Eva O, Jill Emery (bass), Tom Morgan (drums) and Paris Sadonis (keyboards). At the time, Rozz was increasingly falling under the influence of the philosophy of Charles Manson. Jill Emery left the band early in 1992 to concentrate her duties on Hole, who would become an internationally successful act, and Aaron Schwartz was brought in to record "Dead Babies/Killer" for the Welcome to Our Nightmare compilation CD consisting of cover versions of Alice Cooper songs. Chuck Collison also contributed samples to these tracks.
Williams, Eva, Listo (bass) and David Melford (drums) started recording new versions of Christian Death songs for The Iron Mask album in February 1992. The album was made, in part, to finance the Shadow Project European tour of February and March 1992, when they were supported by Mephisto Walz. Peter Tomlinson had replaced Tom Morgan on drums for this tour.
Williams also occasionally took part in Christian Death reunions during the late 1980s and early 1990s with Rikk Agnew, the guitarist on the band's first album.
In 1992, with the help of Eva O, Paris Sadonis, William Faith, Sevan Kand (son of Valor Kand), Scat Elis, Stevyn Grey, Kris Kohls, Brian Virtue, Wayne James, Armon Christoff and Aaron Schwartz, Rozz Williams recorded two new Christian Death studio albums entitled The Path of Sorrows and The Rage of Angels. Williams had been quoted as saying "The Path of Sorrows is probably my favorite Christian Death album".
For the last time in June 1993 at Los Angeles' Patriotic Hall, Christian Death regrouped for a one show, captured on the CD and live video Iconologia. Williams was joined by Rikk Agnew, George Belanger and Casey (bass). Following his brother's decision not to come back on stage to play the encores, Frank Agnew was credited as additional guitarist on the recordings. During some live performances, Williams could be seen wearing a T-shirt which sported the words "Never Trust a Valor".
At this time, there were effectively two bands recording and performing material under the name "Christian Death". This eventually precipitated a heated legal battle between Williams and Valor Kand which was never satisfactorily resolved.
In 1993, Shadow Project toured America. The band consisted of Williams, Eva, Paris Sadonis, Mark Barone (bass) and Christian Omar Madrigal Izzo (drums). After this American tour, Eva O and Paris left the band to work on the Eva O Halo Experience CD Demons Fall for an Angel's Kiss. Shadow Project had come to an end; however, a German tour for October had already been booked. Although all tickets, flyers and publicity for this tour were credited to Shadow Project, Williams had decided that the band name should change to Daucus Karota. He sang on the tour, Brian Butler was the guitarist, Mark Barone played bass and Christian Omar Madrigal Izzo was on drums. For one show, Demone drove from her home in Amsterdam to Germany to meet up with Williams backstage. The Shrine EP by Daucus Karota was recorded in January 1994 with Mark Barone (bass), Christian Omar Madrigal Izzo (drums) and Roxy (guitars). The EP was reviewed favourably by Trouser Press. Daucus Karota returned to Europe for a month-long European tour in November 1994, with Demone filling the support slot. The tour had Todd Dixon on drums, Michael Saavedra on bass and Brian Hansen on guitar. Hansen had replaced Rolf Donath, who had been the guitarist for the band at shows in Los Angeles and Mexico during that summer.
Later career
Demone and Williams came together to release the album Dream Home Heartache in 1995. It was recorded by Williams and Demone in Gent, Belgium between March 28 and April 5, 1995, with help from Pieter Rekfelt. The producer was Ken Thomas who had previously worked with David Bowie on Hunky Dory. Williams and Gitane played a few shows together in April 1995 and again in December 1995. They toured the UK in April 1996.
In 1995, following his return from Europe, Williams joined up with Paris Sadonis and Ryan Wildstar to work on the spoken word album, The Whorse's Mouth. The lyrics, co-written with Ryan Wildstar, chronicle a period of heroin addiction from which the two eventually escaped. Shortly following the recording of The Whorse's Mouth, Williams began playing bass for EXP, the musical troupe created by Paris and Ryan Wildstar. He went on to play bass on their self-titled debut album with bandmates Paris (keyboards), Ryan Wildstar (vocals), Doriandra (vocals), Ace Farren Ford (horns/violin), Justin Bennett (drums) and Ignacio Segovia (percussion).
In 1997, Williams again paired up with Eva O to record the final Shadow Project album, From the Heart. He also recorded Wound of Exit, his last solo CD as Premature Ejaculation.
Other interests
In addition to his musical activities, Williams had a keen interest in painting, along with collaging, and several of his pieces have been exhibited at some dark art shows through Los Angeles and Atlanta through his friend Snow Elizabeth. He also co-directed and scored Pig, a 1998 experimental psychological horror silent short film with underground film maker Nico B. The film stars Rozz Williams and James Hollan and was produced and directed by Nico B. Pig was the last work Williams did.
Personal life
Williams did not like to discuss his sexual orientation publicly, however in a 1997 interview with John Sabien Ellenberger for Golgotha Magazine, he called himself gay. In the same interview with Ellenberger, while discussing The Whorse's Mouth he revealed how he was hesitant to have his family listen to the album, Williams stated, "There's certain things I don't feel like need to be shared with them. It was a really difficult thing for me to call, and just say like 'well guess what? I'm gay'. You know, my mom's response was 'Well son, I'm not stupid.'" In the 1980s, he was in a long-term relationship with performance artist Ron Athey, and together they would both enter an intimate relationship with Eva O. After Athey and Williams split, Williams would continue his relationship with Eva O, whom he married in 1987, and then divorced in 1998.
Williams regularly performed in drag, a trait that put him at an inverse to the prevailing hypermasculinity of the hardcore punk scene he was involved in. He began doing this as an act of rebellion against the jock types who became involved in punk. Music archivist Danny Fuentes compared his style of performance to political activism, stating: "The gender bending of his persona and the in-your-face delivery made it a form of queer activism... that is what was brave about him, he never felt the need to explain himself." However, as time passed it became intrinsically linked to his identity; he began to explore the practice of "living in drag", where for stretches of time he would only ever be seen in women's clothes, an aspect that lessened later in life. Musician Anohni cited this aspect of Williams as influential upon both her understanding of her own identity and the style of performance in her group Blacklips, saying in an interview with Artforum that she "think[s] of Rozz more and more as such a foundational presence in a certain line of underground queer dreaming. Rozz... definitely had a huge impact on me and Johanna, as did Diamanda Galás." Andrew D'Angelo too cited Williams as influential upon his understanding of gender and sexuality.
Williams was raised in a strict Southern Baptist family, but abandoned this as he formed Christian Death. As the years went on, as he stated in an interview with Ellenberger, he eventually became a Satanist and practiced magic in the privacy of his home. However, in 1996, he stated in another interview with Ellenberger that he had developed a "personal relationship with God."
And What About the Bells?, a collection of Williams' poetry compiled and edited by Ryan Wildstar, was released posthumously in 2010. An updated, hardcover edition, featuring scans of Williams' journals, a new foreword, and an in-depth interview with Ryan Wildstar was released on June 9, 2023.
Suicide
In the introduction for the book And What About the Bells?, Ryan Wildstar (born Ryan Gaumer), Williams' friend and roommate of eight years, stated that on March 31, the night before Williams took his own life, they watched the film Isadora (1968), about dancer Isadora Duncan, during which Wildstar retired to bed despite Williams' protest, who said, "You don't even know how it ends!" Wildstar replied that he knew Isadora hangs to death at the end after her scarf gets caught on the spokes of her car's wheel, and went to bed. Williams made final phone calls to friends and family in the early morning hours the next day. Wildstar said that if he had not been distraught over the death of his boyfriend Erik Christides, who died of a heroin overdose on November 27, 1997 (Thanksgiving Day), he would have seen the warning signs to Williams' suicide more clearly.
On April 1, 1998, Williams hanged himself in his West Hollywood apartment, at the age of 34. His body was discovered by Wildstar, who heard worried messages on the answering machine and broke down the door to Williams' bedroom when he returned home that afternoon. Williams had left a rose on the coffee table in the living room, along with several items, including The Hanged Man tarot card. He left no note. A memorial was held at the El Rey Theatre shortly after his death, and a small gathering of family and friends scattered his ashes at Runyon Canyon Park in the Hollywood Hills.
Theories have arisen regarding the reason for Williams's suicide, including failing health, depression, bipolar disorder, financial instability, and his fascination with the number 1334, which can be found in the liner notes of his albums, in his signature, and also on his urn. It is also unknown as to why Williams committed suicide on April Fools' Day.
The cabinet in which he hanged himself as well as a few pieces of original artwork are on display at the LA Museum of Death.
Legacy
Williams' creativity had a profound effect on the Goth subculture and was also influential in poetry and collage artwork. Annually, fans pay tribute to his life and work. In 2010, Gothic Beauty Magazine and a short film Necessary Discomforts an Artistic Tribute to Rozz Williams featured one such event at the Hyaena Gallery curated by A Raven Above Press.
The Mountain Goats' 2000 album, The Coroner's Gambit, was dedicated to Williams, and several songs refer to singer John Darnielle's reaction to Williams' death.
On April 1, 2018, to commemorate twenty years since Williams's death, Cult Epics and Dark Vinyl Records released two albums: In the Heart, recorded during the "Dream Home Heartache Tour", and On the Altar, from Williams's last European tour.
In 2018, Cult Epics released a box set to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his film Pig, which starred Williams. Only twenty-five were made. Each included one of the few remaining VHS copies of the film (numbered up to 1334), an exclusive t-shirt, a postcard, lobby cards, a limited edition print of one of Williams' collages, a commemorative pin, and a portion of the original 8 mm film strip. Each box was signed and dated by Nico B., and each VHS tape was signed as well.
Cult Epics had released also the book "The Art of Rozz Williams: From Christian Death to Death" in a Hardcover re-issue in 2018 as well "Christian Death: OTOP Photography by Edward Colver", in Hardcover and Softcover editions in 2022.
Discography
Christian Death (1981–1985)
Deathwish (EP; recorded 1981/released 1984)
Only Theatre of Pain (1982)
Catastrophe Ballet (1984)
Ashes (1985)
The Decomposition of Violets (live; 1985)
The Doll's Theatre: Live Oct. 31. 1981 (live; 1994)
Christian Death featuring Rozz Williams
The Iron Mask (1992)
Skeleton Kiss EP (1992)
Stick a Finger Down Its Throat (1992)
The Path of Sorrows (1993)
Iconologia (1993)
Sleepless Nights: Live 1990 (1993)
Invocations: 1981–1989 (1993)
The Rage of Angels (1994)
Tales of Innocence: A Continued Anthology (1994)
Christian Death: Live (video; 1995)
Death in Detroit (1995)
Death Mix (1996)
The Best of Christian Death (Featuring: Rozz Williams) (1999)
Death Club (2005)
Six Six Sixth Communion (2007)
Death Box (box set; 2012)
Shadow Project (1987–1998)
Is Truth a Crime? (1989)
Shadow Project (1991)
Dreams for the Dying (1992)
Dead Babies/Killer (1992)
In Tuned Out – Live '93 (1994)
From the Heart (1998)
The Original Shadow Project (2005)
Premature Ejaculation (1981–1998)
PE – Pt.1 (1981)
PE – Pt.2 (1981)
A Little Hard to Swallow (1982)
Living Monstrocities/Descent (1985)
Death Cultures (1987)
Assertive Discipline (1988)
Death Cultures III (1988)
Blood Told in Spine (1991)
Death Cultures (1989)
Anesthesia (1992)
Necessary Discomforts (1993)
Estimating the Time of Death (1994)
Wound of Exit (1998)
Happiest Place on Earth (1986–1990)
Body of a Crow (1986)
PULSE (1989)
Environments: Birth, Death, Decay (1990)
Daucus Karota (1979, 1986, 1993–1994)
Shrine EP (1994)
Heltir (1987–1998)
Il banchetto dei cancri/VC-706 (1989)
69 Rituals (1989)
Neue sachlichkeit (1994)
EXP
EXP (1996)
Rozz Williams and Gitane Demone
Dream Home Heartache (1995)
Rozz Williams (1992–1998)
Every King a Bastard Son (1992)
The Whorse's Mouth (1997)
Posthumous albums
Untitled (1999; available with "The Art of Rozz Williams")
Live in Berlin (2000)
Accept the Gift of Sin (2003)
Sleeping Dogs (2013)
In the Heart (2018)
On the Altar (2018)
Filmography
Is Truth a Crime??? (1989)
Pig (1998)
1334 (2012; posthumous)
Bibliography
The Art of Rozz Williams: From Christian Death To Death (Softcover 1999) (Hardcover 2016, 2021)
Le théâtre des douleurs... and What About The Bells? (2010)
Christian Death - Only Theatre of Pain: Photography by Edward Colver (2022)
References
External links
Official website
1963 births
1998 suicides
20th-century American poets
20th-century American singer-songwriters
American male poets
American male singer-songwriters
American punk rock singers
American rock songwriters
American rock singers
Bisexual male writers
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Christian Death members
Death rock musicians
Gothic rock musicians
LGBT people from California
American LGBT poets
Musicians from Los Angeles County, California
People from Pomona, California
Poets from California
Singer-songwriters from California
Suicides by hanging in California
American LGBT singers
American post-punk musicians
1998 deaths
20th-century American male singers
American bisexual writers
People from Claremont, California |
422715 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCAS | UCAS | The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS ) is a charity and private limited company based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, which provides educational support services. Incorporated on 27 July 1993, the company's main role is to operate the application process for British universities and colleges. The company is funded by fees charged to applicants and universities as well as advertising income; it was formed by the merger of the former university admissions system Universities Central Council on Admissions and the former polytechnics admissions system Polytechnics Central Admissions System.
Services provided by UCAS include several online application portals, several search tools, and free information and advice directed at various audiences, including students considering higher education, students with pending applications to higher education institutes, parents and legal guardians of applicants, school and further education college staff involved in helping students apply and providers of higher education (universities and HE colleges).
While UCAS is best known for its undergraduate application service (the main UCAS scheme), it also operates a number of other admissions services:
UCAS Conservatoires - application and search service for performing arts at the UK conservatoire
UCAS Teacher Training (UTT) – for postgraduate teacher training schemes
UCAS Postgraduate – application and search facility for some postgraduate courses
Location
UCAS is based near Marle Hill in Cheltenham at the junction of the B4075 (New Barn Lane) and the A435 (Evesham Road), near Cheltenham Racecourse and a park and ride. It is situated just inside the parish of Prestbury, Gloucestershire.
History
UCAS was formed in 1992 by the merger of Universities Central Council on Admissions (UCCA) and Polytechnics Central Admissions System (PCAS) and the name UCAS is a contraction of the former acronyms UCCA and PCAS. An early proposal was made for the new merged body to be called PUCCA (Polytechnics and Universities Central Council on Admissions), but this was never adopted.
UCCA was the older of the two bodies, having been formed in 1961 to provide a clearing house for university applications in the United Kingdom. It was created in response to concerns during the 1950s that the increase in University applications was unmanageable using the systems then in place, where each student applied individually to as many institutions as they chose. This concern led to the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) setting up an ad hoc committee in 1957 to review the matter; this committee in its Third Report of January 1961, recommended the setting up of a central agency, which subsequently became known as UCCA. Its First and Second Reports had already made several recommendations aimed at harmonising admissions procedures across different universities.
The name UCCA referred originally to the management board (the Central Council) overseeing the new process but soon came to refer to the organisation responsible for its day-to-day operation. This was based initially in London, and moved to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire in 1968. The new scheme had a pilot year handling a subset of applications for entry in 1963, and its first full year of operation handled admissions for 1964.
The scheme was essentially a collaborative venture between independent universities, and membership was voluntary. Most English universities joined from the start. Oxford and Cambridge joined (with slightly modified procedures) for the 1966 entry; the London medical and dental schools, as well as Belfast and Stirling for the 1967. In 1965, UCCA handled 80,033 applicants, rising to 114,289 in 1969. The acceptance rate of UCCA applicants by universities in 1969 stood at just over 50%.
Initially, the processing of applications was carried out using punched card technology. In 1964, UCCA started using the services of a computer bureau with a Univac machine; in 1967 it installed its own Univac computer.
Although the polytechnics were degree-teaching institutions, through the CNAA awards system, they were not eligible for admission to UCCA as it was reserved only for universities with degree-awarding powers. Despite this, the Polytechnics were involved as early as 1972 in discussions with UCCA and the Central Register and Clearing House about the possible future shape of one or more admissions systems. At this stage applicants dealt directly with each individual polytechnic, and the polytechnics themselves were strongly regional or local in their appeal. A study in 1977 found that between sixty and seventy per cent of those admitted to a polytechnic had applied to that institution only, and that forty percent of admissions to polytechnics resulted from applications made in August or September of the year of entry.
In 1983 the Committee of Directors of Polytechnics began negotiations with UCCA to share its computing, technical and office facilities in Cheltenham to establish a course entrance system, based on the existing model used by UCCA. A grant of £210,000, from the British Department for Education and Science, was awarded to set up a new unified admissions system, provisionally called PUCCA. However, instead of a unified system for both the universities and polytechnics, a separate system for polytechnics emerged from the negotiations, modelled on UCCA, but known as PCAS. Applicants to courses were given the option to apply separately for universities or polytechnics, or both.
The PCAS system came into effect in 1985. It was led by its first Chief Executive, Tony Higgins, and in the first year it handled around 140,000 applications to polytechnic courses, of whom 40,000 a year went on to study at polytechnics.
Although many polytechnics offered art and design programmes, and some also offered teacher training courses, these admissions systems remained outside PCAS. Art and Design admissions worked to a later timetable as a result of the role Art Foundation courses had in developing a student's proposed specialism (painting, sculpture, graphic design, and so on). Work was furthermore generally submitted before a decision was made on whether to interview. However, means of absorbing the Art and Design Admissions Registry into UCAS were found by 1996.
Although the aim to create a fully unified application system for universities and polytechnics was not achieved until 1994, from the '80s onwards Tony Higgins, the Chief Executive of PCAS, continued to push for the merger of PCAS with UCCA. In 1992, following the change of status and name of most polytechnics to universities, the two bodies combined under Higgins's leadership. Initially the application form was branded jointly UCCA/PCAS, but in 1994 the new merged body was officially renamed UCAS.
In 2015, the Amsterdam Fashion Academy became the first non-UK educational establishment admitted to UCAS.
Undergraduate admissions schemes
Main undergraduate scheme
Since the vast majority of UK universities and higher education colleges use the UCAS service, most students planning to study for an undergraduate degree in the UK must apply through UCAS – including home students and international students.
Application
To apply to university, students must submit a single application via UCAS's online Apply service. The application itself requires the student to register to the service, giving a "buzzword" if applying through a centre, fill in personal details, write a personal statement and choose up to five courses to apply to, in no order of preference. They must then pay an application fee and obtain a reference before submitting their application online by the appropriate deadline. The application is then forwarded by UCAS to the universities and colleges that the students have applied to. After following their internal policies, which may include an interview, the institutions then decide whether to make students an offer of a place. An institution can make a student either an unconditional offer, where the student is assured a place, or a conditional offer, where the student will receive a place subject to specific grades being met. In certain circumstances, the university may withdraw the application before interviews, though this usually only occurs by some action on the applicant's part (not replying to emails in time for example).
For applications to universities in the UK, entry requirements for individual courses can either be based on grades of qualifications (e.g. AAA at GCE A-Level, a score of 43/45 in the IB International Baccalaureate Diploma, or a music diploma) or in UCAS points (e.g. 300 UCAS points from 3 A-Levels or an IB score equal to 676 UCAS points). To convert individual scores or grades of specific qualifications into UCAS points, UCAS has created tariff tables indicating indexes and ratios of UCAS points and results of qualifications. For example, an A* at A-level is worth 56 UCAS points, an A 48, a B 40, and so on. For the IB, a score of 45 equals 720 UCAS points, a score of 40 is 611 points, a score of 35 is 501 etc.
Personal details
Once logged into "Apply", applicants complete a number of personal details – including their current qualifications, employment, and criminal history, national identity, ethnic origin, and student finance arrangements. Applicants also have the option to declare if they have any individual needs – such as any disabilities; or if they are a care leaver.
Personal statements
The personal statement is an integral part of the application. It gives candidates a chance to write about their achievements, their interest in the subject they are applying for, as well as their suitability, interest, and commitment to higher education. Personal statements can contain a maximum of 4,000 characters (including spaces) or 47 lines – whichever comes first, with a maximum of 94 characters per line. A research study conducted by UCAS with over 300,000 personal statements of students revealed that the personal statement (among the student's grades) is the most important part within the application process. Plagiarism in personal statements is common and UCAS uses Copycatch software to detect personal statements that are considered to have 30% or more "similarity" to statements submitted by others. The free-form nature of the application also lead some applications to complete the essay in an absurdist manner.
Due to being viewed by some as being rooted in class bias, UCAS began phasing out the statement in 2023, with the college class of 2025 being the last one mandated to complete it.
Application fees and references
The final part of the process involves paying an application fee and obtaining a written reference. The process varies depending on whether a student is applying through a school, college, or UCAS centre or as an individual.
For the former, applications are sent to the school, college, or centre, who may ask applicants to pay their fee to them (which they then pass to UCAS) or pay UCAS directly, before they provide a reference and submit the form on the student's behalf. If applications are sent to the school, college, or centre, then they will attach a reference to send to UCAS. Applicants are responsible for ensuring that their school, college, or centre submits the application before the appropriate deadline for their courses.
Individual applicants should request their reference – from a teacher, adviser, or professional who knows them – before paying the fee and submitting the form themselves.
For most current applications, the cost per student is £22 to apply for a single course or £26.50 for two or more courses (as of 2022 entry).
Application deadlines
Depending on the subject and on the university that they are applying for, candidates must submit their application by the relevant submission deadline to ensure their application is given "equal consideration" by the higher education providers they are applying to. The term "equal consideration" refers to the obligation on all course providers to "consider all applications received by this time equally".
15 October deadline: Those applying for medicine, dentistry, and veterinary science courses and anyone applying to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge must submit their UCAS applications by 15 October – in the year before the student wishes to start their studies.
25 January deadline (in 2023): The majority of applications must be submitted by 6 p.m. on 25 January (in the calendar year that the student wishes to begin their studies).
24 March deadline: Some art and design courses have a later application deadline – 24 March – to give applicants time to complete their portfolios.
It is possible for students to submit applications up until 30 June each year; but a late submission may not be given the same consideration as those submitted before the deadline. Applications received after 30 June are placed directly into Clearing.
Offers
Students must adhere to the appropriate deadline for their course. Whilst UCAS advises universities and colleges to send their decisions by the end of March, the universities have the responsibility of responding to applicants and may operate in their timescale. Many universities (like the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge) require that applicants come to an interview or be interviewed online before offers are received, or they may be asked to submit an additional piece of work before receiving an offer.
Offers are made through the UCAS Track service by universities and are either unconditional or conditional, where the latter means that the student will receive a place dependent on exam performance. Applicants also find out if they have been rejected through UCAS Track.
Once an applicant has received a reply from their choices, they must reply to their university before the deadline in May. Applicants normally choose two offers through UCAS, one as their firm choice and one as their insurance choice. A firm choice means that, if the student receives the grades required, then the student's conditional offer will be confirmed. An insurance choice means that, if the firm choice is a university that eventually rejects them due to their grades, then the student will get into that university if they have met the terms and conditions of the insurance choice's conditions. A student may only make an insurance choice if their firm choice is a conditional offer.
Certain universities have engaged in the dubious practice of making a "conditional unconditional" offer, meaning that a student was advised by the university that they would get an unconditional offer (and not then need to meet grade targets), but only if they made that university their firm choice. This served to guarantee both that the student would have a place and that the place would not be turned down if the student hit the grades required for a better or preferred course. This practice was temporarily banned at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and the UK government discourages universities from giving out these offers.
Extra
If an applicant uses all of their five choices and does not receive any offers, or they decide to decline the offers they receive, they can apply for additional courses using UCAS' Extra service. This allows them to keep applying, one course at a time until they receive an offer they're happy with. Extra runs between mid-February and the end of June. If they do not receive an offer during this time, they have the option to enter into Clearing when it opens in July.
Confirmation and clearing
When applicants receive their examination results, they will know if they have met the conditions of their firm and insurance choices. Universities give out unconditional offers and rejections when applicants receive their examination results.
Those that do have their offers confirmed are invited to accept a place on the course they applied to, which is called "confirmation". Many universities and colleges still accept students that narrowly miss their offer conditions.
Those that do not meet their "firm" and "insurance" offer conditions are eligible to use UCAS' Clearing service – which enables unplaced students to apply for courses with vacancies directly to the university. They do so by searching for an available course, using the UCAS search tool, and contacting each university or college concerned for a place.
Although most available places are published following results days in August, it opens at the start of July each year and closes in October.
Adjustment
Through what was known as "Adjustment", if applicants exceeded the conditions of their firm offer, they had the option to search for a place at another university or college while retaining their original offer. Adjustment was cancelled in 2022 and is no longer available.
UCAS Conservatoires – performing arts scheme
UCAS operates Conservatoires UK Admissions Service (formally known as CUKAS) in conjunction with Conservatoires UK, managing applications for both undergraduate and postgraduate music, dance, and drama courses at nine UK conservatoires:
Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London
Leeds Conservatoire
Royal Academy of Music, London
Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (part of Birmingham City University)
Royal College of Music, London
Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow
Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Cardiff
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London
Students must apply through the online CUKAS service by:
1 October – for most music courses
15 January – for most undergraduate dance, drama, and screen production courses
UCAS postgraduate admissions schemes
UTT – postgraduate teacher training
UCAS Teacher Training (UTT) is an application service for postgraduates that want to become teachers. UTT replaced UCAS' previous GTTR teacher training application service and expanded its remit to provide centralised admissions for School Direct and school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) programs.
UTT programmes are either university/college-taught or school-based and typically last for one academic year; usually leading to a PGCE qualification.
Students begin their application in the autumn for programmes starting in the following academic year. They start by using Apply 1 – which allows them to choose up to three programmes. Training providers then have 40 working days to make an offer. During this time they will invite candidates they're considering offering a place for an interview. At the end of the 40-day period, students will have responses from their three choices and will have 10 working days to reply to any offers.
However, if students don't get offered a place using Apply 1, or they choose to decline all of the offers they receive, they can use Apply 2 to apply for new places, adding one choice at a time, until they receive an offer.
Apply 1 opens on 21 November each year
Apply 2 opens on 2 January each year
UCAS Postgraduate – postgraduate admissions scheme
UCAS Postgraduate (also known as UK PASS) is UCAS' postgraduate admissions service. It was introduced with the objective to offer students access to over 20,000 courses at 18 participating universities and colleges in England, Scotland and Wales – both taught and research courses leading to a variety of qualifications – including MA, MSc, MBA, and LLM.
Other schemes
UCAS Progress – post-16 education and training admissions scheme
UCAS has launched UCAS Progress, a service enabling GCSE students to search and apply for post-16 work and education-based training courses – including academic and vocational courses (such as A levels and BTECs), as well as Apprenticeship and Traineeship programmes.
The scheme is free for students to use and is implemented as a national service – listing post-16 opportunities from all across the UK.
UCAS Progress also helps schools, colleges, and local authorities address recruitment issues and statutory obligations resulting from raising the age of participation in secondary education; an initiative that legally obliges students to remain in full-time education or work-based training until the end of the academic year that they turn 17. However, this is about to change after government reforms; when students will be required to remain in education or training until their 18th birthday.
UCAS Media
UCAS Media is a commercial enterprise that raises money by offering commercial organisations and education providers a channel to communicate with prospective students: in effect, it sells targeted advertising space. UCAS is a non-governmental and not-for-profit company. UCAS undergraduate admissions handled almost three million applications from 700,000 UK, EU and international students.
UCAS Media does not disclose information about applicants to its advertising clients. However, it does send advertisements to applicants on behalf of its clients and can target specific groups such as 'early adopters' or those located in a specific location.
All UCAS Media profits are fed back into the UCAS charity, much of which is gift aided. This reduces the fees paid by universities and by applicants for access to the UCAS service.
UCAS Media has proven controversial among data privacy campaigners. In 2014 deputy director of Big Brother Watch, Emma Carr was quoted as saying:
In 2019, Martin Lewis, the consumer finance expert, accused UCAS of abusing its position after it allowed a private debt company to promote high interest commercial loans to school leavers. UCAS had sent an email promoting loans by Future Finance, with interest rates of up to 23.7%, well above the current maximum of 5.4% on student loans and worse than most high street credit cards. In response, UCAS said: “UCAS is an independent charity ... This helps us to keep the costs for students applying to university as low as possible.”
See also
Common Application, USA and some colleges in Europe
HELOA
JUPAS
List of UCAS institutions
Universities' Statistical Record
References
External links
UCAS Tariff points ("UCAS points") table
UKPASS – applications service for postgraduate courses
UCAStv
Organisations based in Cheltenham
University and college admissions in the United Kingdom |
422752 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CA%20Technologies | CA Technologies | CA Technologies, Inc., formerly Computer Associates International, Inc., and CA, Inc., was an American multinational enterprise software developer and publisher that existed from 1976 to 2018. CA grew to rank as one of the largest independent software corporations in the world, and at one point was the second largest. The company created systems software (and for a while applications software) that ran in IBM mainframe, distributed computing, virtual machine, and cloud computing environments.
The company reflected the personality of its primary founder, Charles Wang. The main key to Computer Associates' fast growth was the acquisition of many lesser-sized software companies in the IBM mainframe industry segment. CA was known for large-scale dismissals of employees in the acquired firms, and for sometimes extracting cash flow from acquired products rather than enhancing them. Customers of CA often criticized the company for its poor technical support and somewhat hostile attitude. CA underwent a major accounting scandal in the early 2000s that led to several past executives being sent to prison. However by the 2010s, CA was ranked high by several corporate responsibility and recognition metrics.
Computer Associates had its origins in both Switzerland (Zurich and Geneva) and in the United States (New York City). It was headquartered on Long Island for most of its history, at first Jericho and Garden City in Nassau County, then Suffolk County for two decades in Islandia before moving back to Manhattan in 2014. In 2018, the company was acquired by Broadcom Inc., a semiconductor manufacturer, for nearly $19 billion.
History
Origins
The origins of Computer Associates International lie in a Swiss software products company and a New York data services company.
Samuel W. Goodner was a Texan who was working for the American businessman Sam Wyly's company, University Computing Company (UCC). UCC had acquired the Swiss computer services company Automation Center A.G., founded by the Swiss businessman Walter Haefner, and Wyly despatched Goodner to Europe to watch over it. By 1970, UCC was experiencing financial difficulties, and Goodner, who admired some of Haefner's management practices, decided to leave and start his own firm that would engage in software product development. A company by the name of Computer Associates A.G. was founded in 1970 by Goodner and was located in Zurich, Switzerland.
Meanwhile, under regulatory pressure in 1969, IBM had announced its decision to unbundle the sale of computer hardware from its software and support services;i.e., mainframe computers from computer programs, etc. The decision opened new markets to competition and provided an opportunity for entrepreneurs to enter the nascent software industry — an opportunity that Goodner sought to exploit by developing and selling software products for the IBM mainframe market.
The new firm Computer Associates was underfinanced, but it did have a customer in the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Hoffmann-La Roche and it had developed a sorting program for Hoffmann-La Roche. The new sort had superior efficiency, and, starting in 1971, Computer Associates began selling in Europe the CA-SORT package as a plug-in replacement for the IBM Sort on IBM System/360 and System/370 mainframe platforms. The firm sought to sell in countries other than Switzerland, and created a holding company for that purpose; distributors were signed up in different European countries, some of which would then be acquired by Computer Associates. As of 1971, Computer Associates International SA was described as being based in Geneva, and Geneva would be its headquarters through the rest of the 1970s. Then in mid-1974, CA-SORT began being distributed and sold in the United States by Pansophic Systems, under the name Pansort. By 1974, the firm was referred to as Computer Associates International Ltd.
In New York City, Standard Data Corporation was a company that was mainly in the service bureau business for electronic data processing. One of the first such companies, it had been in existence since 1959, and was located at 1540 Broadway in Manhattan. In 1973, Standard Data began offering the SYMBUG product for sale, which was a symbolic debugger for the COBOL programming language on the IBM mainframe VM/370 platform. In addition, by October 1974, Standard Data was advertising several other products for VM/CMS, including VM/370 ISAM, an emulation of OS ISAM in VM/CMS, as well as SYMBUG for other languages. Eventually Standard Data created a Software Products Division, of which Charles B. Wang was a vice-president. Wang too sought to take advantage of the IBM unbundling decision by developing and marketing software products for the IBM mainframe.
In January 1976, an agreement was signed whereby Pansophic Systems relinquished U.S. rights to CA-SORT and Standard Data Corporation took those exclusive rights over and in the so doing, restored the product name to its European form. Standard Data also gained U.S. rights to a report generator package called Earl (for Easy Access Report Language).
1970s
Then in October 1976, a merger was announced between Computer Associates International Ltd and the Software Products Division of Standard Data Corporation, with this merger creating a new entity, Computer Associates, Inc., with Wang as president. The newly created company would continue to market CA-SORT in the United States and in the rest of the Western hemisphere, while the existing European firm would market some of Standard Data's products such as SYMBUG. The new company had an office at 655 Madison Avenue. (The main part of Standard Data Corporation continued on as a company, supplying computer services for several kinds of organizations; the company persisted into the 2010s, but its website does not appear to have been accessible after 2018.)
It is thus to 1976 that the creation of what would become the well-known Computer Associates company is usually dated. This new venture began with four employees. One of them was Russell Artzt, who had met Wang in college, worked with him at Standard Data Corporation, was responsible for programming some of the early software products the new company was offering. Artzt is accordingly considered a co-founder of the well-known Computer Associates.
But that would still be awaiting. Soon, the new American venture's name would appear as Trans-American Computer Associates, Inc., in the sense that by September 1977, the company's advertisements were copyrighted to Trans-American Computer Associates, Inc., while CA-SORT 77 was copyrighted to Computer Associates International Ltd. For instance, DYNAM/D was a disk utility for IBM mainframes running DOS and DOS/VS that did disk space management, disk cataloguing, and other such functions; announced in 1977, its trademark belonged to Trans-American Computer Associates, indicating it was developed in America rather than Europe.
In 1979, offices of the American company were moved to Long Island at Jericho, New York, at 125 Jericho Turnpike.
By 1980, the overall Computer Associates International had some 300 employees across its locations around the globe and was selling 12 different products to what it said were 9,000 different customer installation sites. Sales from the United States were the biggest market for the company. In 1980, Wang bought out the Swiss parent company and Computer Associates International, Inc. became his.
1980s
Computer Associates had an IPO in 1981 that garnered the company a modest $3.2 million. Its stock traded on the NASDAQ using the stock symbol "CASI".
The first significant acquisition in CA's history took place in 1982, when it merged with Capex Corporation, resulting in a 50 percent increase in CA's revenues. Both CA and Capex made software products for the IBM mainframe, but while by CA's own marketing statements CA had visibility and success in software products for IBM's DOS mainframe operating system, potential customers did not think CA was strong in products for the IBM OS mainframe operating system. In contrast, this was an area where Capex had established itself.
The acquisition of Capex was generally viewed as having been successful. It was the start of what was to become a buying spree for Computer Associates over the next several years. The company specialized in going after third-party mainframe software.
By 1986, Computer Associates had moved its headquarters again, to Garden City. They would come to be situated in five other buildings within Nassau County as well.
CA's strategy for growth reached a new level with its deal for Uccel in 1987, which valued at $800 million was an order of magnitude larger than any of its previous acquisitions. Uccel was a new name for UCC, which Haefner had gained control of from Wyly in 1976 and which had undergone ups and downs in the years since. Of Uccel's existing staff of 1,200 people, 550 were let go; this kind of harsh post-acquisition reduction measure was typical for the company and became a part of CA's public image. Haefner became Computer Associates' largest individual shareholder, with a stake that comprised about 25 percent of the company.
In 1987, CA's stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange using the ticker symbol "CA". In 1988, the company purchased the principal software product of Consco.
As the decade ended, CA became the first software company after Microsoft to exceed $1 billion in sales.
Information Week listed Computer Associates ahead of Microsoft in a 1990 roundup titled "Software's Heavy Hitters."
1990s
Early in the decade, Computer Associates was forced to address criticism of the company as well as a sharp decline in its stock price, which fell more than 50% during 1990. The ensuing changes included pushing into foreign markets (Japan, Canada, Africa, Latin America), reforming how the company charged its customers for software maintenance, and improving compatibility with products from other vendors, such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), Apple Computer, and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). In addition, the company was not immune to the effects of the early 1990s recession, and by October 1991 the stock was down by around 70 percent from its earlier peak in May 1989. At this point, CA had some 7,000 employees, and around $1.4 billion in sales,
In 1991, CA acquired Pansophic Systems.
After 2½ years of planning and construction, the company began moving its headquarters to Islandia, New York in Suffolk County in 1992, consolidating all of the Nassau County operations. There it would occupy a large corporate campus with three office buildings. By this juncture, CA was Long Island's second largest private employer, after Grumman Aerospace, and Suffolk County politicians had given CA substantial tax abatements and assistance with construction financing to lure the company there.
In 1994, CA acquired the ASK Group and continued to offer the Ingres database management system under a variety of brand names.
In 1992, the company was sued by Electronic Data Systems (EDS), a CA customer. EDS accused CA of breach of contract, misuse of copyright and violations of antitrust laws. CA filed a counterclaim, also alleging breach of contract, including copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets. The companies reached a settlement in 1996.
In 1995, Legent Corporation was acquired for $1.78 billion, the biggest-ever acquisition in the software industry at that time, and Cheyenne Software for $1.2 billion in 1996. CA executed the software industry's then-largest acquisition ($3.5 billion) via Platinum Technology International in 1999.
In 1998, an unsuccessful and hostile takeover bid by CA for computer consulting firm Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) prompted a bribery suit by CSC's chairman Van Honeycutt against CA's founder and then CEO, Charles Wang.
By the end of the 1990s, Computer Associates was the dominant company among providers of utility software tools for the mainframe. Personal computer software firms such as Microsoft, Lotus Software, and WordPerfect Corporation were much more recognizable as names to the general public. but while this mainframe industry segment was not widely known, it was a renumeratively rewarding one. A profile in Business Week in 1996 was headlined "Computer Associates: Sexy? No. Profitable? You Bet ", and that accurately conveyed the company's place in the industry.
In May 1998 stock grants were issued to Wang and two others together worth $1.1 billion at the time.
In 1999, Wang received the largest bonus in history at that time from a public company. The receipt of a $670 million stock grant that dated to the vesting of a 1995 stock option occurred while the company faced a slowdown in European markets and an economic slump in Asia, both of which had affected CA's earnings and stock price. The stock grants thus became quite controversial. In total, the company took a $675 million after-tax charge for $1.1 billion in payouts to Wang and other top CA executives.
Company culture
Computer Associates generally received poor marks for customer relations, with a reputation of being more interested in making sales than providing support afterward. Indeed, to some extent the CA sales force regarded customers as foes. In 2001, The New York Times wrote that "Computer Associates has infuriated clients with high prices and poor technical support." Fortune wrote, "For all its ubiquity inside the tech departments of corporate America, CA had a horrendous reputation. Where Microsoft has long been the most feared software company, the old CA claimed the title of most despised – not by competitors but by its own customers."
Detractors of CA accused it of often putting newly acquired software products into maintenance mode and milking them for cash flow. The products themselves were expensive and central to what corporate IT departments were doing, and so customers found it difficult to move away from CA. As Fortune wrote, "These products made it the barnacle of corporate America: Once you had CA software onboard, it was so onerous and expensive to pull it out that few customers ever did. That led to a lot of steady cash flow – and to arrogance on the part of CA's management." Or as The Register wrote, "CA used acquisitions to grow its portfolio.... Along the way it acquired a reputation as the place decent software goes to die." Nonetheless, as the Times noted in 2001: "To be sure, complaints about Computer Associates' prices and customer support have been around almost as long as the company, and it has always outlasted its detractors."
For good or for bad, the culture of Computer Associates very much reflected Wang's background, that of an immigrant educated at the non-elite Queens College, City University of New York, and personality. Wang did not admire or belong to the Silicon Valley mindset and either insulted or avoided its ecosystem of industry analysts and venture capitalists. The company's sales force was composed largely of blue-collar types from New York's outer boroughs and Long Island. With them, CA had a reputation for being "smart, aggressive, and consistently profitable".
Internally, as the Times wrote,
"Over the years, [the company] has gained a reputation as a callous employer that dismisses workers without warning while top executives take home eight- and sometimes nine-figure pay packages."
In particular, Computer Associates had a reputation for mass dismissals within companies it had taken over. This was the case with Applied Data Research, for instance, as some 200 employees from its Montgomery Township, New Jersey facility were let go on a single morning in 1988. Similarly, at Cullinet, around 400 employees, comprising a quarter of the company's workforce were told to clear out their desks on a day in 1989. As Sam Wyly, the head of Sterling Software, reflected upon his decision in 2000 to sell that company to Computer Associates: "It wasn't easy for us because of
our concern about the CA culture. It wasn't the ideal end place for our products and people.
We agonized over that, but our overriding duty was to the shareholders, so we went ahead
with the deal."
A somewhat contrarian view of Computer Associates was given by computer industry historian Martin Campbell-Kelly, writing around 2001, who gave the company credit for continuing to enhance the DATACOM/DB and IDMS database products it had acquired and for doing the work to have its databases and utility products be able to interoperate. Campbell also saw the act of staffing reductions as "rationalization" of existing businesses that in some cases were not performing well. A hybrid characterization was given in 2002 by Pansophic Systems founder Joseph A. Piscopo, who said that while his company, acquired in 1991, had suffered the typical fate of CA reducing it to just the minimal staff needed to keep maintenance revenue going, in a few cases CA did actually invest in companies it acquired as part of an internal product development strategy, with Cheyenne Software being one such instance.
Accounting scandal
By 2000, Computer Associates had acquired about 200 companies. In that year, Sanjay Kumar replaced Wang as chief executive officer. Then in 2002, Kumar became chairman of Computer Associates' board of directors.
Meanwhile, in 2002 the U.S. Department of Justice limited CA's acquisitions. The company refinanced large amounts of debt.
In 2001, a proxy battle ensued between the board of directors and shareholders led by Wyly. Wyly had hopes of appealing to Haefner, as their business relationship dated back to the 1960s, but Haefner stayed loyal to Wang. In the end, Wyly's two attempts failed; he gave up the struggle in 2002 and received a $10 million payment that was characterized as "greenmail" by some, but not all, industry analysts.
In 2000, a shareholder-based class-action lawsuit accused CA of misstating more than $500 million in revenue in its 1998 and 1999 fiscal years in order to artificially inflate its stock price.
An investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was instantiated, resulting in charges against the company and some of its former top executives. The SEC alleged that from 1998 to 2000, CA routinely kept its books open to include quarterly revenue from contracts executed after the quarter ended in order to meet Wall Street analysts' expectations. In 2004, the company avoided indictment for involvement in the 35 day month accounting scandal by reaching a settlement with the SEC and Department of Justice, in which CA agreed to pay $225 million in restitution to shareholders and reform its corporate governance and financial accounting controls.
Eight CA executives pleaded guilty to fraud or obstruction of justice charges, and several received prison terms. Most notably, in 2006 former CEO and chairman Kumar was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $8 million for his role in the massive accounting fraud at Computer Associates. The company subsequently made sweeping changes through virtually all of its senior leadership positions. Overall the company spent over $500 million on investigations and fines.
2000s
By 2001, Computer Associates was the fourth-biggest among independent software companies and had 18,000 employees. Attempts to diversify away from the mainframe business had not met with much success.
CA started the India Technology Centre in Hyderabad on December 10, 2003. In 2004, CA appointed ex-IBM employee John Swainson as CEO. Swainson tried to turn things around, but was hampered by trouble that the company had in fixing its internal finance and accounting systems.
During this time, the company presented its Enterprise IT Management (EITM) vision to unify and simplify enterprise-wide IT By 2006, the company had 15,000 employees.
The company's original name of Computer Associates International, Inc. was changed to CA, Inc. in January 2006. The company said that the change reflected a changed focus towards helping customers "simplify the management of enterprise-wide IT"; it also came shortly before Kumar pleaded guilty to the array of charges against him.
On September 1, 2009, CA announced CEO John Swainson's decision to retire by the end of the year.
On January 28, 2010, CA announced that William E. McCracken would be its chairman of the board and chief executive officer.
2010s
In May 2010, at the opening of the CA World 2010 conference in Las Vegas, the company announced it was changing its name again, to CA Technologies. For a reason, the company said the new name "reflects the full breadth and depth of what the company offers."
In 2010, the company acquired eight companies to support its cloud computing strategy: 3Tera, Nimsoft, NetQoS, Oblicore, Cassatt, 4Base Technology, Arcot Systems, and Hyperformix. It also acquired Replay Solutions. In 2011, CA acquired ITKO for $330 million. Two years later, it acquired app deployment and management company Nolio for approximately $40 million, as well as Layer7.
The company had been a provider of anti-virus and Internet security commercial software programs for personal computers during its venture into the business-to-consumer market.
In 2011, CA sold its antivirus properties to Updata Partners, which spun the division off as Total Defense. After the spinoff, CA became primarily known again for its business-to-business mainframe and distributed (client/server, etc.) information technology infrastructure applications.
On January 7, 2013, CA Technologies announced that Michael P. Gregoire would be a member of the board and new chief executive officer. In June 2014, CA Technologies moved its headquarters, without an announcement, from Islandia in Suffolk County, to 520 Madison Avenue in New York City.
In 2015, the company made four acquisitions, including Rally software for $480 million, Unifyalm, Gridtools, Idmlogic, and Xceedium.
In 2016, CA acquired Blazemeter, Automic, Veracode, and Runscope in 2017.
CA Technologies posted $4.2 billion in revenue for fiscal year 2018 (ending March 31, 2018). Mainframe products and services was still the major of CA's income, comprising about $2.2 billion in the fiscal year, while its so-called enterprise solutions market segment contributed some $1.75 billion and its services business around $0.3 billion. As of 2018, CA Technologies maintained offices in more than 40 countries and employed approximately 11,300 people.
On August 8, 2018, CEO Mike Gregoire was elected as chairman of CA Technologies board of directors, replacing retiring chairman Art Weinbach.
Acquisition by Broadcom
On July 11, 2018, Broadcom Inc. announced it would acquire CA Technologies for $18.9 billion in cash.
CA's head, Mike Gregoire, said, "This combination aligns our expertise in software with Broadcom's leadership in the semiconductor industry." The acquisition puzzled some industry observers, since the two companies' business seemed to have little in common. One analyst acknowledged that Broadcom could generate cash from the CA operations, but commented: "Financially, it can make sense. But what's the strategic logic?" The Register was more direct, terming it the "Weirdest. Acquisition. Ever." The transaction was closed on November 5, 2018.
The irony of the reversal of positions did not go unnoticed, with The Register saying "CA Technologies, long a byword for making acquisitions, has been acquired by Broadcom." And Broadcom, like CA, had a reputation for making large reductions in the companies it had just acquired. Immediately after the acquisition closed, Broadcom laid off former CA Technologies workers in Silicon Valley and Plano, Texas. It also laid off 262 former CA Technologies employees in Islandia and some in Manhattan. Then, Long Island-based Newsday reported that about 40 percent of all CA employees in the United States would be laid off, adding up to almost 2,000 people being let go. Not long after the Broadcom acquisition, the large Computer Associates campus on Islandia was abandoned.
Corporate responsibility and recognition
During the mid-1990s, Computer Associates realized it had an image problem, both externally and internally, and consequently created a public relations department within the company and also adopted some more employee-friendly human resources policies.
Sustainability
In 2010, CA was listed among the greenest companies by Newsweek's Green rankings. CA has been named a component of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) for seven years, from 2012 to 2018. In 2015 and 2016, CA was ranked as one of America's Greenest companies by Newsweek.
In 2017, the company scored an A− from CDP, the world's most comprehensive rating of companies leading on environmental action, for environmental performance and disclosure.
According to a corporate sustainability report released by the company in 2018, CA reduced its Greenhouse Gas Footprint by more than 35% since 2006. It received the Climate Leadership Award in Excellence in GHG Management in 2018, and was included in Barron's 100 Most Sustainable Companies in 2018 as well.
In February 2018, CA was named one of the World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere Institute for the third consecutive year.
Equality and diversity
CA Technologies was named one of the best companies for multicultural women by Working Mother Magazine for four consecutive years, from 2015 to 2018 as well as one of the 100 Best Companies from 2015 to 2017. The company was also awarded 4.3 of 5 stars by InHerSight as one of the Top 10 IT Companies for Women in 2017. In 2015 and 2016, Fatherly.com ranked CA as one of the Best Places to Work for New Dads.
In 2018, CA was named a NAFE top company for executive women. CA was also included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI) in 2018.
In 2018, for the fourth consecutive year, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation ranked CA as one of the Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality.
CA CEO Mike Gregoire is a signatory of the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion pledge.
Work environments
For four consecutive years, 2015–2018, CA was named by Computerworld as one of the Best Places to Work in IT. In 2017, it was named to the Forbes list of America's Best Employers and recognized with a STAR Award for Leadership and Innovation by the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA).
In 2018, CA was named to the Thomson Reuters World's Top 100 Technology companies and for six consecutive years has been the recipient of the NorthFace ScoreBoard Award from Customer Relationship Management Institute (CRMI).
Acquisitions
CA had a long history of acquisitions in the software industry. It grew its portfolio and became successful through acquiring many companies in disparate fields, including system monitoring and management, ID management, security, and anti-virus, among others.
See also
CA IT Process Automation Manager
Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc.
New Relic
Tech companies in the New York metropolitan area
References
Further reading
21st Century Management: The Revolutionary Strategies That Have Made Computer Associates a Multibillion-Dollar Software Giant, by Hesh Kestin, (1992, Atlantic Monthly Press)
External links
CA-SORT User's Guide, at Broadcom website
Broadcom
1976 establishments in New York (state)
2018 disestablishments in New York (state)
1980s initial public offerings
2018 mergers and acquisitions
American companies established in 1976
American companies disestablished in 2018
Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq
Defunct software companies of the United States
Defunct computer companies based in New York (state)
Enterprise software
Financial technology companies
Software companies established in 1976
Software companies disestablished in 2018
Website monitoring software |
422764 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British%20Rail%20Class%2055 | British Rail Class 55 | The British Rail Class 55, also known as a Deltic, or English Electric Type 5, is a class of diesel locomotive built in 1961 and 1962 by English Electric for British Railways. Twenty-two locomotives were built, designed for the high-speed express passenger services on the East Coast Main Line (ECML) between Edinburgh and . They gained the name "Deltic" from the prototype locomotive, DP1 Deltic (the running number DP1 was never carried), which in turn was named after its Napier Deltic power units. At the time of their introduction into service in 1961, the Class 55s were the most powerful single-unit diesel locomotives in the world, with a power output of . They had an official maximum speed of , and introduced the first regular 100 mph diesel passenger service to Britain, they were however capable of higher speeds than this, and often exceeded their official maximum in service, especially in their later years, with speeds of up to , being recorded on level gradients, and up to whilst descending Stoke Bank.
Despite their successes, the Deltics had a relatively short commercial service life of 20 years. From 1978 they were displaced by the next generation of high speed diesels, the "InterCity 125" High Speed Trains (HSTs) and the Deltics were subsequently relegated mostly to secondary services on the Kings Cross to York, Edinburgh and Hull routes, although they continued to operate some top-link trains until 1981, such as the Hull Executive. The high running costs of the Deltics meant that no viable alternative use could be found for the fleet, and all were withdrawn from service between January 1980 and December 1981. Six of the locomotives were saved for preservation.
Background
In 1955, the English Electric company produced a prototype diesel locomotive at the Dick, Kerr & Co works in Preston, officially named the DP1 but commonly known as Deltic, this prototype experimentally used two Napier Deltic engines which had been developed for marine applications. These unconventional engines were configured in a triangle with an opposed piston design. They ran at high speed (1,500 RPM) more than twice that of conventionally configured engines, which made them very powerful relative to their size and weight, compared to the conventional diesel engines of the era. The locomotive used two of these engines, both rated at , which gave the locomotive a combined power output of for a weight of 106 tons.
The other notable features of the locomotive was its large size by British standards, and striking styling, which was inspired by the bulldog nosed American diesels of the era.
At the same time, the management of the British Railways Eastern Region were looking for a replacement for their pre-war fleet of Class A4 steam locomotives for use on top-link expresses on the East Coast Main Line. There was a contemporary (1957) proposal to electrify the ECML, however this had a proposed completion date of 1970. Gerry Fiennes, the traffic manager of the ECML, believed that his expresses should be able to achieve an end-to-end average speed of in order to remain competitive with other forms of transport, he felt that they could not wait more than a decade for service improvements by electrification when the expanding road network was taking away passengers, and opted instead for high speed-diesel traction as an interim solution.
The management of the Eastern Region were however unimpressed by the performance of the best conventional diesels of the time, the s, which for a weight of 133 tons, produced , which meant that their performance was no better than the steam locomotives they were supposed to replace. However, as the Deltic prototype had the necessary power and speed to achieve Gerry Fiennnes's desired performance improvements, he persuaded British Railways to purchase a fleet of locomotives based on it.
Production
In March 1958, an order was placed with English Electric for a production fleet of 22 locomotives (reduced from the originally-planned 23), replacing more than twice that number (55) of steam locomotives including 35 Nigel Gresley Pacifics; as steam locomotives require substantial time to clean, fuel, and fire, such a reduction in the number of units could be undertaken without a corresponding reduction in working availability. The full order was worth £3,410,000 (), working out at £155,000 (), per locomotive. Due to the complexity of the engine design, which needed specialist maintenance, the locomotives were purchased under a five year service contract, with English Electric agreeing to maintain them, including their engines and generators, for a fixed price; this was British Rail's first such contract. Additional Deltic engines were produced to enable engines to be exchanged regularly for overhaul while keeping the locomotives in service. English Electric trained the British Rail staff at the Doncaster Works in the techniques of maintaining the engines, and after the contract ended, they took over this responsibility.
The production locomotives were built at the Vulcan Foundry at Newton-le-Willows, they were mechanically little changed from the prototype, but differed in appearance with a toned down styling, sporting a more sober colour scheme, and lacking the prototype's large headlight. The production Deltics were also 7 tons lighter than the prototype, weighing in at 99 tons, despite being nearly longer. They were originally planned to be delivered within a year from March 1960, but this deadline was not met, and they were delayed by a year, with the first Deltic entering revenue service in the summer of 1961, with a full service being introduced the following year.
The locomotives were assigned to three locomotive depots: Finsbury Park in London, Gateshead near Newcastle, and Haymarket in Edinburgh. Very soon, all were named; the Gateshead and Edinburgh Haymarket locomotives after regiments of the British Army from the North-East of England and from Scotland, respectively, while Finsbury Park followed the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) tradition of naming locomotives after winning racehorses.
At the same time, English Electric built a further ten locomotives which were later classified as the , which had single Napier Deltic engines; these gained the nickname "Baby Deltics" as they were in effect scaled down versions of the Deltics. These locomotives however, were far less successful in service than their larger cousins, and were all withdrawn by 1971.
British Rail service
The introduction of the Deltics was a step change in locomotive performance on the East Coast Main Line. Once the entire fleet was delivered into service in 1962, the timetable was accelerated, with the journey time from London to Edinburgh cut by one hour, from seven hours to six; enabled by the Deltics' ability to rapidly accelerate and maintain high speed with a heavy train over long distances. This matched the timing of the pre-war A4-hauled Coronation service, but was achieved without priority over other traffic unlike the earlier LNER train, it was also now the timing of normal standard fare expresses throughout the day, and not just a once-a-day premium fare express. From 1966 the infrastructure on the ECML was progressively upgraded to allow higher speeds in order to take better advantage of the Deltics' capabilities; this included upgrading the track, and other improvements such as the easing of sharp curves and improving the alignments through various stations. By 1973, these upgrades had allowed another half-hour to be cut from the London–Edinburgh journey time, with the Deltic-hauled Flying Scotsman, timetabled to reach Edinburgh in 5 ½ hours, with one stop at , achieving an average speed of over the entire journey.
On one of O. S. Nock's first Deltic runs (the down Heart of Midlothian loaded to 13 coaches, 530 tons gross) he stated "once the tail of the train was over the 60 mph restriction the throttle was opened to the full, and the surge forward could be felt in the cab. Never previously had I felt a positive thrust in my back when in the second man's seat!" Nock went on to estimate that at 80 mph the locomotive was producing about 2,750 drawbar horsepower.
As early as 1963, Deltics were recorded exceeding 100 mph, Nock recording 100 mph for 16 miles south of Thirsk with a maximum of ; he went on to say that such speeds in 1963 were "terrific".
The ultimate Deltic performance came on 2 February 1978 with a run on the 07:25 from Newcastle to King's Cross. In some respects, the run was set up (the driver was about to retire) but the speeds were record-breaking. The locomotive was 55 008 The Green Howards; it was hauling 10 coaches (343 tons gross), and on the leg from York to London it achieved a timing of 137 min 15 sec. This included various signal stops and other enforced speed reductions; the net time is estimated at 115 min 45 sec, an average of start to stop. The train achieved on the flat between Darlington and York, at Offord and whilst descending Stoke Bank.
From 1978, the ECML was upgraded to allow 125 mph running, in order to accommodate the InterCity 125s, and although the Deltics were still officially limited to 100 mph, in practice they frequently exceeded this in service. The fastest regular scheduled Deltic service was the Hull Executive between London and , which was inaugurated in May 1978. The down (northbound) working of this service achieved an average speed of from King's Cross to its first stop at , making it the fastest regular locomotive-hauled train in Britain at the time. Maintaining this schedule required sustained periods of running above 100 mph. The published logs of some of these runs show that Deltics cruised at up to . The Hull Executive was one of the last top-link workings by a Deltic, until 1981, when this service was taken over by HST's.
The Railway Performance Society estimate that on modern infrastructure (the Selby Diversion etc.) a realistic Deltic-hauled schedule from King's Cross to Edinburgh would be around 4 hours 57 minutes (a theoretical unchecked run being around 4 hours 40 minutes). This would be for a train of 11 coaches and include a stop at Newcastle, the latter city being reached in a scheduled 3 hours 6 minutes.
The Deltics had arrived from the manufacturer painted in two-tone green, the dark BR green on top, with a narrower strip of a lighter, lime green along the bottom. This helped to disguise the bulk of the locomotive body. The cab window surrounds were picked out in cream-white. Although delivered without it, they all soon sported the bright yellow warning panel at each end common to all British diesel and electric locomotives, to make them more conspicuous. By 1966 the InterCity branding was introduced, and the Deltics began to be painted in corporate Rail Blue with yellow ends, the change generally coinciding with a works repair and the fitting of air brake equipment, the locomotives originally having only vacuum braking (the first so treated was D9002; the last to be painted blue was D9014). In the early 1970s they were fitted with Electric Train Heating (ETH) equipment to power Mark 2 air-conditioned coaches, while a couple of years later, with the introduction of BR's TOPS computer system, they were renumbered 55 001 to 55 022.
Withdrawal
In the late 1970s, the Deltics began to take on secondary roles, gradually being supplanted by the next generation of express passenger services, namely the "InterCity 125" High Speed Train (HST) which were introduced on the ECML from 1978. At this time, British Rail had a general policy of not maintaining small non-standard fleets of locomotives, and when the HST fleet took over East Coast mainline services, it was obvious the class had a limited future. Various alternative uses for the fleet were examined, but this came to nothing: A significant weakness of the Deltics were their high running costs, due to the complexity of their engine design which required expensive specialist maintenance, which mitigated against their redeployment elsewhere. In their last years, the Deltics mostly operated the semi-fast services between London and York. They were also used on various popular excursions to areas of the country often far outside of their usual operating area, such as Exeter, and .
From 1980 to 1982, the fleet was gradually run down; no new spare parts were ordered for the declining fleet, and the locomotives were gradually withdrawn, and then cannibalised for spares to keep the others running. Withdrawn locomotives were taken to Doncaster for stripping and eventual scrapping. For a time the Deltic scrap line was a major draw for railway enthusiasts. In November 1981, the Doncaster Works dismantled its Deltic engine overhaul facility.
The National Railway Museum selected 55 002 The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry for preservation as part of the National Collection. The Friends of the National Railway Museum sponsored the repaint of 55 002 into original green livery for its last eighteen months in traffic, although it carried its TOPS number rather than D9002. As insurance, in case 55 002 should meet with a mishap during its last months, the withdrawn 55 005 The Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire was set aside from breaking up at Doncaster Works until Deltic operation on the main line had concluded.
The final service train run was the 16:30 Aberdeen-York service on 31 December 1981, hauled from Edinburgh by 55 019 Royal Highland Fusilier, arriving in York at just before midnight. The last train was an enthusiast special, the "Deltic Scotsman Farewell", on 2 January 1982, hauled from King's Cross to Edinburgh by 55 015 Tulyar and 55 022 Royal Scots Grey on the return. 55 009 Alycidon shadowed the train in both directions between Peterborough and Newcastle, in case of a failure of the train locomotive. Following the farewell, the surviving Deltics were moved to Doncaster Works, where they were displayed en masse in February 1982, before disposal commenced.
Accidents and incidents
On 15 December 1961, locomotive D9012 Crepello was hauling an empty stock train when it ran into the rear of a goods train at Conington, Huntingdonshire during permissive block working. Another goods train then ran into the wreckage, followed a few minutes later by a third goods train.
On 5 March 1967, locomotive No. 9004 Queens Own Highlander was hauling a passenger train that overran a signal and was derailed at Conington. Five people were killed and eighteen injured. The signalman had moved a set of points under the train. He was convicted of endangering persons travelling on the railway but was acquitted of manslaughter. He was sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
On 7 May 1969, locomotive No. 9011 The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers was hauling the Aberdonian which derailed at , Northumberland due to excessive speed on a curve, although 9011 itself remained on the rails. Six people were killed and 46 were injured.
On 16 February 1977, an express passenger train hauled by 55 008 collided with a Class 101 diesel multiple unit operating an empty stock train after failing to stop at . The guard of the express was slightly injured. The cause of the accident was that the brakes on the carriages had become isolated, in a freak event, whilst the train was moving. The train had struck an object on the track, which had caused a traction motor cover to come loose. This struck the handle of the brake isolating cock, closing it and thus separating the brakes between the locomotive and train. Following the collision, the train was diverted onto the Tees Valley line, where it was brought to a halt by the operation of the communication cord in one of the carriages.
Preservation
Six locomotives survive; all have run in preservation and all have operated on the mainline, although 55 015 only ran on the mainline at the Rocket 150 event in 1980. Two cabs are also preserved.
Current loco numbers are indicated in bold.
Loco details
D9000 (55 022) Royal Scots Grey was purchased by the Deltic 9000 Fund and, on 7 September 1983, was handed over in fully running condition after work and a repaint by BR. Its first base was the Nene Valley Railway. It was later accommodated by Network SouthEast at Selhurst and Old Oak Common depots, from where it regularly travelled to open days around the country. In 1996 it was overhauled by Railcare at St. Rollox railway works, Glasgow and received main-line certification. The Deltic 9000 Fund became a limited company (Deltic 9000 Locomotives Limited) and both D9000 and D9016 passed into its care. Its initial return to service, on the "Deltic Deliverance" charter, on 30 November 1996, was cut short by an exhaust stack fire (a regular Deltic problem in service days). Following rectification work at Springburn it ran to King's Cross on an empty stock train before resuming its second main-line career on 2 January 1997 on the "Deltic Reunion" charter to Hull and Harrogate, during which it visited the turntable within the National Railway Museum, where it stood alongside the prototype. It continued to work main line charter trains between 1997 and 2002 and was hired by both Anglia Railways and Virgin CrossCountry to operate service trains on their behalf, as cover for their locomotives. Following the demise of Deltic 9000 Locomotives Limited in 2004 the locomotive was sold to Beaver Sports (Yorks) Ltd. It completed an 18-month overhaul and was re-certified for running on the main line in August 2006. Royal Scots Grey has been repainted into blue livery, carrying the markings of York (YK depot) and York City coat of arms crests above the numbers, as done in 1981. It is the first Class 55 to carry the York coat of arms crest since 1982. The locomotive continues to work charters and to be available for spot hire to national operators. In 2015 the locomotive was repainted with 'Finsbury Park-style' white cab window surrounds and at various times has carried the identities of scrapped sister locomotives 55 003 Meld, 55 007 Pinza and 55 018 Ballymoss 55 022 alongside classmate 55 016 were later purchased by Locomotive Services Limited and since arriving at Crewe 55 022 has been undergoing an overhaul to return to the mainline hauling railtours for Locomotive Services Limited and its new charter train operator "Saphos Trains". Parts from 55 016 are being used in the engine's overhaul while the latter engine is on static display in Margate.
D9002 (55 002) The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry was donated to the National Railway Museum, York and was the first preserved Deltic to return to the main line when it worked light engine to York after participating in the Doncaster Works Open Day on 27 February 1982. 55 002 is one of three Deltics to hold mainline certification (along with D9000 Royal Scots Grey and D9009 Alycidon). 55 002 is rarely used on mainline charters and is mostly used to haul locomotives belonging to the National Railway Museum either between their two sites at York and Shildon or to other destinations such as Barrow Hill Engine Shed.
D9009 (55 009) Alycidon was purchased by the Deltic Preservation Society (DPS). It was initially based at the North York Moors Railway before undergoing an extensive overhaul and restoration and recertification for main-line use. Following the DPS withdrawal from main-line operations it was mostly based at the DPS depot at Barrow Hill. It was recertified for mainline use in July 2012 after a long absence stretching back to 2003. On 3 March 2019, 55 009 was hauling the 'Auld Reekie' from Edinburgh – Doncaster where all 6 traction motors flashed over. 55 009 has not worked since and was hauled back to Burton by British Rail Class 67 67004. 55 009 is now at the Great Central Railway (heritage railway) for testing following extensive repairs.
D9015 (55 015) Tulyar was purchased by a private buyer, Peter Sansom; in 1986 it was sold on to the Deltic Preservation Society. It has led a nomadic existence on many preserved railways and was the favoured DPS locomotive for open days during the 1990s (where it was sometimes presented in the guise of a scrapped sister locomotive, for example during 1994 when it appeared at various events numbered and named as 55 001 St Paddy. It is currently under major overhaul at the Deltic Preservation Society depot at Barrow Hill.
D9016 (55 016) Gordon Highlander was purchased by the Deltic 9000 Fund, with the intention that it would be restored to running condition, whilst acting as a 'twelve wheeled mobile source of spares'. It was moved to Wansford, on the Nene Valley Railway to join D9000, where the temptation to restore it to operational condition became too great to resist. Eventually, like D9000, the locomotive left the railway for the Network SouthEast depots at Selhurst and Old Oak Common. After D9000 had been operating on the main line for three years the decision was made to overhaul and recertify D9016, to provide cover for Royal Scots Grey, and the locomotive was moved to Brush Traction at Loughborough. Following overhaul it spent a short period on the main line, on charter work, its operation sponsored by Porterbrook, in recognition of which it was painted in their purple and grey house colours, based upon the original two-tone green style. It lasted in this livery until 2002, when the original two-tone green livery was reapplied. Following the demise of Deltic 9000 Locomotives Limited the locomotive was purchased and based at the Peak Rail (Heritage Railway), near Bakewell, Derbyshire. In July 2008, this locomotive was sold by the private owner to Harry Needle Railroad Company (HNRC). In spite of previous announcements to the contrary, HNRC put the locomotive up for sale at the end of September 2008. Bids from the Gordon Highlander Preservation Group and Beaver Sports (Yorks) Ltd. (the owners of 55 022) were rejected by HNRC in favour of a higher offer from Direct Rail Services who kept D9016 at Barrow Hill for a year with the intention of a full overhaul but these plans never surfaced. The locomotive was sold one year later to Beaver Sports (Yorks) Ltd. and it was based at East Lancashire Railway with 55 022. The aim was to return D9016 to mainline condition once again. D9016 donated one of its two engines to 55 022 in April 2010 to replace one of 55 022's engines, a former marine example that had been temporarily fitted to 55 022 following an earlier engine failure. During 2014 D9016 left the East Lancashire Railway for the Great Central Railway. In January 2015 the locomotive moved to the Washwood Heath site of Boden Rail, for bodywork repairs. D9016, along with classmate 55 022, were later purchased by Locomotive Services Limited. D9016 required a cosmetic overhaul, owing to damaged areas. With the main intention being to return 55 022 to service first parts were taken off D9016 for use on 55 022 and after being given a cosmetic facelift. 16 was returned to its original BR Green with its pre-TOPS number, D9016. The engine would later be moved to Margate for static display at LSL's new museum at the Hornby factory.
D9019 (55 019) Royal Highland Fusilier was purchased by the Deltic Preservation Society. Initially based at the North York Moors Railway, along with 55 009, the locomotive subsequently moved and spent several years at both the Great Central Railway and the East Lancashire Railway. It is now based at the Deltic Preservation Society depot at Barrow Hill. In April 2005 it became the first Deltic to be fitted with TPWS equipment.
Two cabs were saved after withdrawal:
One cab from D9008 (55 008) The Green Howards was acquired when the locomotive was being scrapped at Doncaster Works in August 1982. 55 008 is mounted on a road trailer and has been fitted out with computer simulation equipment which allows anybody to take the controls. In October 2003, the cab was painted to masquerade as British Rail DP2.
One cab from D9021 (55 021) Argyll & Sutherland Highlander was acquired when the locomotive was scrapped at Doncaster Works in September 1982. It was privately purchased and positioned within sight of the Great Western Main Line at South Stoke, west of Reading. It was later sold to another private owner before being purchased by the Deltic Preservation Society. It has subsequently been sold on to the South Wales Loco Cab Preservation Group.
Operations after BR withdrawal
Despite the ban on privately owned diesel locomotives operating on BR tracks, railway enthusiasts did not have to wait that long after the final withdrawal of the class to see a Deltic back on the mainline. Following participation in the hastily arranged 'Farewell to the Deltics' open day at British Rail Engineering Limited's Doncaster Works on 27 February 1982, 55 002 left Doncaster under its own power and ran back up the ECML to the National Railway Museum light engine; it was to be some years before a Deltic was officially allowed to run again on the mainline.
The next opportunity to see a Deltic back on the mainline and running under its own power was in April 1985 when D9000 was sent (at the request of ScotRail management) light engine from Haymarket depot to Perth for an open day. Following newspaper comments by ScotRail's manager Chris Green around that time there was hope that D9000 might see regular work on ScotRail's lines. Chris Green's move to the management team at the newly created Network SouthEast in 1986 put paid to that. However, that did not end his involvement with D9000. He arranged for Network South East depots to provide accommodation for both D9000 and D9016 and when he moved on to head up Virgin Rail Group D9000 was used on summer Saturday Virgin CrossCountry services in the late 1990s.
With the changes taking place on Britain's railways in the 1990s, the outlook changed for preserved diesel locomotives. In British Rail days no privately owned diesel locomotives were allowed to operate on its tracks. With privatisation came open-access railways—the track and infrastructure were owned and operated by Railtrack, who for a fee would allow approved locomotives and trains to operate on their track. Suddenly, the owners of preserved locomotives were on an equal footing with everyone else. In fact, the characteristics of the Deltic locomotives, powerful and capable of cruising at , enabled them to fit more easily onto the modern rail network than other, slower, preserved diesels.
In 1996 the Deltic 9000 Fund was incorporated as Deltic 9000 Locomotives Ltd (DNLL) with the objective of returning its locomotives to main-line service and on 30 November 1996 D9000 Royal Scots Grey hauled the 'Deltic Deliverance' charter from Edinburgh to King's Cross. This tour however ended prematurely at Berwick-upon-Tweed after a fire broke out in the loco's engine room. D9000 went on to haul many charter trains and service trains for both Anglia Railways and Virgin CrossCountry until 2003. Subsequently, DNLL's other Deltic, D9016 Gordon Highlander returned to main-line working (it was temporarily painted in a purple and grey livery based upon the house colours of Porterbrook, who helped finance the restoration), as did the Deltic Preservation Society's D9009 Alycidon and 55 019 Royal Highland Fusilier. Between 1997 and 2003 all four main-line certified locomotives saw frequent charter and spot hire use, including on the Venice Simplon Orient Express. A highlight of this period was 22 May 1999, when D9000 Royal Scots Grey, D9009 Alycidon and 55 019 Royal Highland Fusilier were all in operation on the East Coast Main Line on the same day – D9000 running the "George Mortimer Pullman" British Pullman between London Victoria and Bradford Forster Square and the DPS Deltics working two charter trains between King's Cross and York. On the return run from Bradford, D9000 was held in platform 1 at Doncaster, whilst 55 019 passed on the up through line. D9000 then followed 55 019 as far as Belle Isle, where it diverged for the run around London to Victoria.
In 2003, DNLL went into liquidation with the result that D9000 and D9016 were sold to private individuals. From July 2003 to March 2005 no Deltics hauled a train on the main line. After a brief return to the main line in 2005 the DPS withdrew their last Deltic (55 019) at the end of 2005, having run three tours during the year. D9015 Tulyar is currently undergoing a full overhaul at Barrow Hill, with the aim of main line operation, whilst 55 002 The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry is currently painted in BR blue, main line certificated, and operates from the National Railway Museum. 55 019 remains in full working order along with D9009, whilst D9016 is currently able to operate on one engine only.
On 23 September 2006, 55 022 (D9000) Royal Scots Grey returned to the main line after a lengthy and extensive restoration at Barrow Hill, carried out on behalf of the owners by the DPS. It successfully hauled the SRPS 'Moray Mint' railtour from Edinburgh to Inverness, via Perth on the outward trip and back via Aberdeen. On its second working two weeks later, severe damage occurred to the number 2 end engine. The engine suffered from a leg out of bed, a term which means the engine con-rod breaks out of the engine crankcase. This left Royal Scots Grey still able to operate but on one engine only. By January 2007, the faulty power unit was removed from 55 022, put into storage and replaced by an ex-marine Napier Deltic engine modified for rail use; work was completed by Royal Scots Grey'''s restoration team in August 2007. After extensive testing at the East Lancs Railway the locomotive hauled its first tour since the previous engine malfunction on RTC's 'Autumn Highlander' with 50 049 and 40 145 in October 2007. 55 022 successfully hauled a number of charter tour services during 2008 but the replacement marine-sourced engine gave rise for concern following the discovery of oil in the coolant and at the end of August the locomotive was removed from future large railtour duties. The locomotive continued working mainline duty by visiting other preserved railway and moving other non-mainline registered locomotives.
In mid January 2007, an agreement was reached between heritage railway Peak Rail and the owner of D9016 Gordon Highlander which entailed the move of the locomotive from Barrow Hill to the preserved line for a period of three years. It had been thought that D9016 would receive certain maintenance and restoration while on the railway. However, the sale of the locomotive to the Harry Needle Railroad Company and subsequent announcements indicated that the weekend runs of 27 and 28 September 2008 might be its last prior to component recovery and eventual scrapping. Despite previous indications to the contrary, HNRC put the locomotive up for sale during the last week of September 2008 and although the Gordon Highlander Preservation Group submitted a substantial bid it was not accepted and the immediate future (and owner) of the locomotive was shrouded in some mystery.
Subsequently, in October 2008, DRS announced in a press release that it had acquired D9016 Gordon Highlander'' from Harry Needle Railroad Company (HNRC): "The company is working with HNRC to return the locomotive to operational condition, although at the time of writing (June 2009) the locomotive is still stored at Barrow Hill awaiting attention. While the locomotive is not planned for an immediate return to service, DRS is confident that the locomotive will be returned to mainline service in the future. DRS intends to retain the locomotive's name". On 29 December 2009, it was announced that D9016 had been purchased by Beaver Sports (Yorks) Limited. It has subsequently operated (on one engine) on the East Lancashire Railway and the Great Central Railway, pending work to restore it to full working order.
In April 2011, 55 022 was hired in by GB Railfreight for bauxite freight working between North Blyth and the Lynemouth aluminium smelter. This hire was scheduled to last from April to July. From May 2013 to November 2015, 55 022 was chartered by GBRF to transfer First ScotRail EMU's for refurbishment. These included the entire fleet of s, which were moved between Yoker and Kilmarnock. The route taken, partially to prevent false fire alarms in underground tunnels caused by the Deltic engine's emissions, takes the train as far as Craigendoran on the north bank of the Clyde before turning round toward Kilmarnock.
On 29 November 2017 it was announced via the official Royal Scots Grey website that 55 022 and D9016, plus all spares, had been sold by Martin Walker to Locomotive Services Limited, with both making the trip to LSL's Crewe Diesel TMD base in December 2017. It is intended that both locomotives will ultimately be repaired (55 022 currently has engine problems and D9016 is coming to the end of bodywork repairs) and operated on the mainline alongside Hosking's sizable locomotive fleet. By June 2018, 55 022 was under repair while D9016 had been placed in store and was transferred, cosmetically restored, to Locomotive Storage Limited's facility at Margate.
Fleet details
Proposed Deltic locomotives
A 72-ton Bo-Bo locomotive, using a single 18 cylinder Deltic engine, was proposed as an alternative to what became the British Rail Class 37 Type 3 locomotive introduced from 1960.
A Co-Co "Super Deltic" was proposed but not built. There were three potential designs between 4000 hp and 4600 hp weighing between 114 and 119 tons with a maximum axle load of . The locomotives would have looked very similar to the eventual Class 50s, though slightly longer. All three designs would have had two 18-cylinder turbocharged engines, based on the 9-cylinder turbocharged engine used in the British Rail Class 23 "Baby Deltic" and the locomotive would have been designated Class 51. The Class 55's engines were not turbocharged, although they did have centrifugal scavenging blowers.
Model Railways
The first OO gauge model was produced by Hornby Dublo in 2 versions. D9012 "Crepello" was the 2 rail version and D9001 "St Paddy" was the 3 rail version. The second OO gauge model was produced by Lima, in two versions initially: D9003 "Meld" in BR Green; and 9006 "The Fife & Forfar Yeomanry" in BR Blue. The same models were also released in N gauge (1:160 scale), however these did not last very long, as Lima eventually decided to concentrate its British outline output on OO gauge.
Bachmann have since released a new version of the "Deltic", in both the OO gauge "Branchline" range and their N gauge "Graham Farish" range. Bachmann have also produced the "Deltic Prototype" in OO gauge (previously only available as a plastic kit from either Kitmaster or Dapol), however this had been commissioned by Locomotion Models – the model railways arm of the Nation Railway Museum – and was not generally available in model shops. A "Graham Farish" N gauge model is available, as a stand-alone model, and as part of the "Merseyside Express" train set.
In 2012 Hornby Railways launched a version of the BR Class 55, which is basic representation of the prototype as part of their Railroad range in BR Blue and BR Green in OO gauge. This model was essentially the old Lima tooling with a new chassis.
Accurascale announced a new range of OO gauge "Deltics", in a wide variety of liveries, which released in summer 2022.
In February 2023 Hornby announced a new diecast Dublo tooling in OO gauge of the Deltic prototype locomotive, English Electric DP1 'Deltic', fitted with sound (R30297TXS).
See also
British Rail DP2 – prototype locomotive, built 1962, which used a Deltic bodyshell, but had a different engine.
References and sources
References
Sources
Further reading
External links
Royal Scots Grey – owners of Royal Scots Grey
The Deltic Preservation Society – owners of several locomotives and cabs
The Chronicles of Napier – on the production Deltics
The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) Group – restorers
Napier Deltic
55
Co-Co locomotives
English Electric locomotives
Vulcan Foundry locomotives
Railway locomotives introduced in 1961
East Coast Main Line
Standard gauge locomotives of Great Britain
Diesel-electric locomotives of Great Britain |
422791 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike%20O%27Brien%20%28British%20politician%29 | Mike O'Brien (British politician) | Michael O'Brien KC (born 19 June 1954) is a British lawyer and former Labour Party politician who was Member of Parliament (MP) for North Warwickshire from 1992 to 2010, serving in a number of ministerial posts.
Early life
Mike O'Brien attended state schools, a Roman Catholic primary school, St George's and then later Blessed Edward Oldcorne School in Worcester. He studied for a BA in History and Politics at North Staffordshire Polytechnic, then gained a PGCE. From 1977 to 1980, he was a trainee solicitor, then trained as a teacher from 1980 to 1981. He lectured on business law at Colchester College of Further and Higher Education from 1981 to 1987. From 1987 to 1992, he practised as a solicitor specialising in criminal law, including cases of murder and City fraud, and acted for a major defendant in the Knightsbridge Security Deposit robbery. He became a Queen's Counsel in 2007. He now practises as a barrister at No5 Chambers in Birmingham.
Parliamentary career
O'Brien contested Ruislip Northwood in 1983, and North Warwickshire in 1987. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for the West Midlands constituency of North Warwickshire at the 1992 general election, defeating the Conservative incumbent Francis Maude.
He served on the Home Affairs Select Committee from November 1992 to May 1993 focusing on reports on Youth Justice and the defence of provocation in murder cases involving a spouse.
He was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee which opened up scrutiny of the intelligence services by Parliament. This led to the first meeting of MPs and the head of MI5, then Stella Remington, and this later led to wider parliamentary scrutiny of the intelligence services.
The Home Affairs Committee also did a report on Domestic Violence, which focused on the extent of the problem. One of the strongest recommendations of the report was: "The first priority for government action on domestic violence should be the establishment of a central, co-ordinated policy for refuge provision throughout the country. We believe that this could well be the single greatest cost-saving measure that could be taken". This led to an expansion in the number of refuges in the following decade. The report also focused on the effect of immigration law on victims of domestic violence and has been credited with supporting a feminist perspective on domestic violence. Influenced by evidence from Southall Black Sisters the report also raised awareness of the problems of domestic servants who faced deportation if they complained about being abused and this later led to changes in the immigration rules when Mike O'Brien became Immigration Minister.
Mike O'Brien introduced a Private Members Bill on 21 April 1993, the Criminal Justice Amendment (No.2) Bill, to allow previous convictions to be taken into account when sentencing a convicted person. This sought to amend the Criminal Justice Act 1991. The Government then accepted the principle and later amended the law.
In May 1993 he became the first Labour Parliamentary Adviser to the Police Federation of England and Wales in 20 years. He opposed cuts in Police Funding, criticising the then Home Secretary Michael Howard saying, "I am appalled at how badly the Home Secretary …has handicapped the police and the fight against crime".
O'Brien subsequently transferred to the Treasury Select Committee where he worked on a report into the collapse of Barings Bank and other reports on City Fraud and Independence of the Bank of England
He clashed with Sir Robin Butler when the Treasury Select Committee investigated the impartiality of the civil service. He criticised the cabinet secretary for allowing himself to be used to investigate whether a Minister Secretary Jonathan Aitken had stayed at a Paris Hotel. "Sir Robin was, at best, ill qualified to undertake any such investigation, as he did not in any previous incarnation have experience of being a policeman, a private investigator or a barrister trained in interrogation. He had none of the qualifications for playing the detective… Sir Robin Butler should not allow himself to be dragged into the gutter of partisan politics, nor should any civil servant. Some members of the Select Committee fear that impartiality has been undermined, and that should never happen again."
Mike O'Brien raised concerns in Parliament after the Matrix Churchill manufacturing plant in Coventry closed, calling on the government to "ensure that those workers and their families are compensated for the loss of their livelihood".
As a member of Treasury Select Committee, he called for the director of the Serious Fraud Office "to go" and for an inquiry into the case of Roger Levitt.
In the May 2010 general election, O'Brien lost his North Warwickshire constituency to Dan Byles, the Conservative Party candidate by 54 votes.
Minister of State for Immigration
Mike O'Brien served as Parliamentary Under Secretary Minister of State for Immigration in the Home Office from 1997 till May 1999.
Mike O'Brien, said that the last Conservative government left the immigration system in "a complete shambles" and it could take two years or more to process an application for asylum and "we need to speed up the system. The deportation system is manifestly slow and cumbersome and produces inequity."
O'Brien described to a colleague the chaos he discovered in the department on being appointed as Immigration Minister: "Once, on a visit to IND, he opened a cupboard and found it full of unanswered mail, having just been assured there were no more outstanding letters. A hapless junior official was summoned. His explanation? 'We put them there so that the Minister wouldn't see them'".
In October 1997, after consulting with lawyers from Stonewall, Mike O'Brien announced a change in UK immigration law allowing citizens to sponsor unmarried partners in 1997, including same-sex couples in this group. "Under this concession, a couple must show that they have been living together for four years or more and intend to continue to live together permanently. Once admitted they will have to show that the relationship has subsisted for a further year before being granted settlement". In 1999, again consulting with Stonewall, he announced this was improved by reducing the required length of relationship to two years. This was the first step taken by the New Labour government toward equality for the LGBTQ community.
As a Home Office Minister responsible for race relations, Mike O'Brien worked with Jack Straw to set up the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, meeting with the Lawrence family and their lawyers. He later endorsed the Macpherson Report in a book called "Institutional Racism and the Police: Fact or Fiction?" saying that, "The Report is about securing the commitment of all of us to tackling racism, whether open or unwitting throughout our society, not just in the police force.... The important thing for all of us is that Britain is a multiracial society. We have a choice whether to succeed as one or not. Racism in all its guises endangers and undermines the future success of our society; that is why to be racist in today's multi-racial Britain is to be 'un-British'."
Since 1992, the trend for net migration to the UK had been rising and continued till 1999. In 1997, annual net immigration stood at 56,000 but by 2001 net immigration had risen to 191,500.
In March 1998, Mike O'Brien told Parliament that in 1994, the previous administration had scrapped the "embarkation checks for passengers travelling from ferry ports and small ports to destinations within the European Union; so, for four years, 40 per cent. of departing passengers have not been seen by an immigration officer…We inherited an embarkation control which serves little purpose in the tracking down of immigration offenders" and therefore Mike O'Brien described the procedure of checking passports as "routine and unproductive" and said that "Enhanced technology, such as closed circuit television, combined with close liaison between the border agencies, port operators and airlines, will create a stronger deterrent than the current immigration departure checks." The Immigration Service Union criticised the move, saying the changes made it harder to ensure that illegal immigrants ordered out of the country actually left.
In May 1998, Mike O'Brien announced that inhabitants of the island of Montserrat, which had been hit by volcanic eruptions, were able to stay in Britain indefinitely. O'Brien's time as Minister of State for Immigration saw him deal with the late 1990s administrative problems including delays in officials giving clearance to NHS doctors and backlogs in processing applications for passports. The delays in issuing passports made national headlines and resulted in the UK Passport Agency being stripped of its Charter Mark for customer service.
Mike O'Brien also took through major reforms in the Immigration and Asylum Act, including introducing fines for hauliers found to have illegal migrants in their lorry, whether or not the haulier knew of their presence.
Responding to a debate on forced marriage on 10 February 1999, Mike O'Brien told MPs that "…multicultural sensitivity is no excuse for official silence or moral blindness. We long ago abolished laws that treated women as chattels. We cannot shelter or tolerate bad practices under the guise of sensitivity." He announced a national dialogue on how to deal with forced marriage which led to the forced marriage unit run jointly by the Foreign Office and the Home Office.
Mike O'Brien developed the procedures for the creation of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (also known by the acronym SIAC) as a superior court of record in the United Kingdom established by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission Act 1997. SIAC deals with appeals from persons deported by the Home Secretary for reasons of national security or terrorism. It allows the security service to disclose confidential intelligence information to the court without disclosing its sources. Information and the source is disclosed to a special advocate who acts for the person but cannot disclose the source of information to either the person or their main lawyers. Speaking at the close of the committee stage of the bill, O'Brien said the law had, "been governed by the terms of the European Court of Human Rights judgment in the case of Chahal. It is about creating the right balance between the liberty of the individual and the safety of the state."
Hinduja affair
Whilst serving as Minister of State for Immigration, O'Brien had to deal with the 2001 Hinduja affair. His testimony that Peter Mandelson had telephoned him on behalf of S P Hinduja, who was at the time seeking British citizenship, led to Mandelson's resignation. An independent enquiry by Sir Anthony Hammond came to the conclusion that Mike O'Brien had acted correctly and neither Mandelson nor anyone else had acted improperly.
Minister for Constitutional Affairs
On 10 May 1999, Mike O'Brien became the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, taking through the Commons the Freedom of Information Act, The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, two Representation of the People Acts and introduced a White Paper on Alcohol Licensing Reform.
As the Minister responsible for Race Relations, he developed the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 which placed obligations on all public bodies to promote good race relations. He also worked to develop closer links between the Government and the Muslim community, something he continued to work on over the next decade, particularly after 9/11.
He regularly spoke at Muslim community events and as the Minister for Race Relations in the Home Office he was responsible for building a dialogue between Muslim Groups and the Home Office. Later after becoming a Foreign office Minister and in the aftermath of 9/11, "the FCO, led by Mike O'Brien, try to strengthen its relationship with the British Muslim community" and this included sponsoring the British Haj delegation.
At a ministerial meeting, O'Brien joined Chris Mullin in warning the Prime Minister that his education reforms were "hectoring" teachers.
Mike O'Brien changed the rules so that cosmetics could not be tested on animals, but considered resigning after the Home Secretary refused to have an inquiry into animal rights complaints about Huntingdon Life Sciences.
In July 2000, Mike O'Brien became a "have a go hero" after he intercepted an alleged shoplifter being chased by a security guard, by sticking his leg out to trip him up as he ran past. Although the man ran off after a scuffle, he had dropped his car keys when he fell and police traced and arrested him. Mike O'Brien had broken his leg, but despite this went straight on to conduct a television interview. He was on crutches for six weeks. He said, "It is something anyone would have done…they caught the man… so I was able to have some small sense of satisfaction."
On 21 December 2000 in the Deregulation (Sunday Dancing) Order 2000, Mike O'Brien ended the ban on any public dancing on a Sunday which had existed since the Sunday Observance Act 1780. He faced opposition to the move from the then Conservative MPs Theresa May and Philip Hammond. Scrapping the ban, O'Brien said: "Our proposals will give freedom of choice for people as well as remove an unnecessary regulation on business. Be it line dancing, square dancing, ballroom or disco, it is plainly daft to have a ban on dancing because it is a Sunday."
In 2001 when the Government proposed to introduce ID cards, O'Brien wrote a pamphlet for "Liberty" attacking ID cards saying, "Identity cards were abolished in the early fifties for good reasons. They were unreliable in proving identity and damaged the relationship between the public and the police. When it comes to fighting terrorism and serious crime, there are more effective things to spend our money on".
Minister for the Middle East
At the Foreign Office from 2002 to 2003 he was Minister for the Middle East. He went to Libya to hold the first meeting of a British Minister with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi which opened the way to better relations between Gadaffi's Libya and the West and helped lead to cooperation on ending controversial Libyan weapons research programmes.
In the run up to the Iraq War, he addressed parliament stating the Government's position, saying: "The body of evidence that Saddam Hussein possesses a fearsome range of weapons of mass destruction is substantial. The evidence comes from the UN reports, from Dr Blix, from our own intelligence and indeed from Saddam Hussein himself, who last night, oddly, admitted that the Iraqis had found a biological bomb and wanted to show us. Let us be clear: Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and he is a threat to his people, his neighbours and ultimately the middle east and the wider world. The UN Security Council is in no doubt about that. That is why its resolution 1441 gave Saddam Hussein a final opportunity to comply with a string of legally binding obligations imposed on him over the past 12 years. Nearly four months later, Saddam Hussein has not taken that final opportunity. I cannot put the matter more crisply than Dr. Blix. He has reported that Iraq "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance . . . of the disarmament which was demanded of it". Before adding "If we have to undertake military action and American and British troops are committed and have to go into Baghdad, I suspect that the Iraqi people will be the first to cheer."
Chris Mullin says that privately when Mullin asked for advice about what to say to Blair at an NEC meeting Mike O'Brien said, "Tell him not to make any more promises to George Bush. Somewhere along the line he's promised Bush that we will be there with him and now he can't back down because his integrity is at stake".
In May 2003, Chris Mullin says Mike O'Brien intended to resign as a Foreign Office Minister over Iraq, "Because I don't believe what I am being asked to say about the existence of weapons of mass destruction. The Security Service is still saying they will be found, but I don't believe them." Mullin, who opposed the war, convinced him to "stay put" because it was unnecessary "self immolation" to resign. Mike O'Brien was not criticised in the various reports into the Iraq war.
He was the first Western government minister into Baghdad after the Iraq War and worked on relationships with Iran, Syria and Afghanistan during this period.
O'Brien was sent by Tony Blair to meet President Assad in Damascus, to secure the release of two SAS soldiers picked up by Syrian security crossing the border, and was credited with the success.
Mike O'Brien was the Foreign Office Minister charged with negotiating Britain's rapprochement with Libya in 2002 which led to Libya admitting responsibility for Lockerbie and paying compensation for victims, ending financial support for terrorism and an extensive chemical and nuclear weapons programme. "…the Americans thought it was entirely pointless exercise. We took the view that it would produce beneficial results… it was a calculated risk… are MI6 people did a tremendous job and the foreign office deserves a lot of credit… The Americans were absolutely stunned by this."
Concerned by the abuse of human rights by the military leadership in Myanmar/Burma, O'Brien successfully ran a campaign to get British American Tobacco to withdraw its investments.
In December 2002, concerned by the human rights violations in Zimbabwe, O'Brien called upon the England Cricket Board to cancel the participation of the England team in the World Cup match in that country; but he rejected demands for compensation for the cost of cancellation. He said, "We cannot order the ECB not to go to Zimbabwe, but we have asked them not to go". In February 2003, the England team confirmed it would not go to Zimbabwe.
Minister of State for Trade and Industry
He was then appointed Minister of State for Trade and Industry, dealing with talks with the WTO as part of the Doha Round and helping to write the 2004 Trade White Paper.
Minister of State for Energy and e-Commerce
Following a reshuffle, O'Brien became Minister of State for Energy and e-Commerce at the Department of Trade and Industry on 9 September 2004.
Solicitor General for England and Wales
Following the 2005 general election, O'Brien replaced Harriet Harman as Solicitor General for England and Wales.
Mike O'Brien had worked closely with the UK Jewish community to set up the first Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2001 and later in June 2005 he was asked to lead the British delegation to the OSCE Cordoba Conference on Anti-Semitism. Speaking at the conference he recalled, "As Race Equality Minister I helped introduce national Holocaust Memorial Day each year which demonstrates our commitment to eternal vigilance against the rise of intolerance." and added that, "The British Government has also promoted an inclusive concept of citizenship. It allows people to be British but to be individuals and express their cultural identity. Our aim is integration, not assimilation. We welcome migrants and expect them to integrate, but on the basis of respect for their own identity."
Minister of State for Pensions
On 29 June 2007, O'Brien was appointed as Minister of State for Pension Reform in the Department for Work and Pensions under Secretary of State Peter Hain. Referring to the long running Pensions Action Group campaign and speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Moneybox programme on the day compensation was announced, pensions expert Ros Altmann, credited Peter Hain and O'Brien with "having been very different to deal with than their predecessors and ... willing and eager to engage and find a way to sort this out." The Pensions Act 2008 completed its major stages whilst O' Brien was minister and received Royal assent in November 2008.
Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change
On 5 October 2008, O'Brien became Minister of State at the new Department of Energy and Climate Change. He took through Parliament two Energy Acts making reforms to take account of the Climate Change debate and to enable the building of new nuclear power stations.
Minister of State for Health
In June 2009, he became the Minister of State for Health.
Through administrative reforms of the NHS in two Acts of Parliament he firmly rejected a study commissioned from consultancy firm McKinsey and Company by his ministerial predecessor, which had recommended 137,000 jobs would need to go to make NHS efficiency savings.
Mike O'Brien introduced priority NHS treatment for former service personnel injured in the line of duty and negotiated a settlement of compensation for the victims of thalidomide. Harold Evans, the former editor of the Observer who had helped expose the thalidomide scandal, said Mike O'Brien was one of the "heroes for Justice" in the thalidomide story, adding, "On 14 January 2010 O'Brien made a dramatic announcement in Parliament. He apologised to the victims and their parents but he also committed the government to give £20m to the Thalidomide Trust."
After Parliament
O'Brien was re-selected as Labour's candidate in North Warwickshire for the 2015 general election in June 2013, but lost to the Conservative Party candidate Craig Tracey.
In June 2019, O'Brien unsuccessfully sought nomination as the Labour candidate in the 2020 election for West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner. There were four candidates on the Labour shortlist: himself, former Lord Mayor and Deputy West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner Yvonne Mosquito, a specialist housing and anti-social behaviour law solicitor Simon Foster, and a former assistant chief executive at Sandwell Council Melanie Dudley. Foster was chosen as Labour candidate and went on to win the election, which was deferred to 2021 owing to the covid pandemic.
References
External links
Official site
Department for Work and Pensions – Official Biography
Guardian Unlimited Politics – Ask Aristotle: Michael O'Brien MP
TheyWorkForYou.com – Mike O'Brien MP
BBC Politics page
News items
Pension reform in July 2007
Wave Hub plan in Cornwall in November 2004
UK embracing E-commerce in November 2004
Meeting Colonel Gaddafi in August 2002
24 hour drinking in May 2001
Accusing Home Office of racism in April 2000
Accusing the Fire Service of racism in September 1999
1954 births
Living people
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 1992–1997
UK MPs 1997–2001
UK MPs 2001–2005
UK MPs 2005–2010
Solicitors General for England and Wales
Alumni of Staffordshire University
English people of Irish descent |
422802 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William%20O%27Brien | William O'Brien | William O'Brien (2 October 1852 – 25 February 1928) was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. He was particularly associated with the campaigns for land reform in Ireland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as his conciliatory approach to attaining Irish Home Rule.
Family, education
William O'Brien was born at Bank Place in Mallow, County Cork, as second son of James O'Brien, a solicitor's clerk, and his wife Kate, the daughter of James Nagle, a local shopkeeper. On his mother's side he was descended from the distinguished Norman family of Nagles, long settled in the vicinity of Mallow giving their name to the nearby Nagle Mountains. He was also linked through his mother with the statesman Edmund Burke's mother's family, as well as with the poet Edmund Spenser's family.
The Nagles however, no longer held the status or prosperity they once had. In the same month thirty-eight years earlier Thomas Davis was born in Mallow. O'Brien's advocacy of the cause of Irish Independence was to be in the same true tradition of his esteemed fellow-townsman. Following in his footsteps he acknowledged the existence of many strands of Irishness.
O'Brien shared his primary education with a townsman with whom he was later to have a close political connection, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile. He enjoyed his secondary education at the Cloyne diocesan college, which resulted in his being brought up in an environment noted for its religious tolerance. He greatly valued having had this experience from an early age, which strongly influenced his later views for the need of such tolerance in Irish national life.
Early journalism
Financial misfortune in 1868 caused the O'Brien family to move to Cork City. A year later his father died, and the illness of his elder and younger brother and his sister resulted in him having to support his mother and siblings. Always a prolific writer, it quickly earned him a job as newspaper reporter, first for the Cork Daily Herald. This was to be the primary career which first attracted attention to him as a public figure. He had begun legal studies at Queen's College, later University College Cork, but although he never graduated, he held a lifelong attachment to the institution, to which he bequeathed his private papers.
Political origins
From an early age O'Brien's political ideas, like most of his contemporaries, were shaped by the Fenian movement and the plight of the Irish tenant farmers, his elder brother having participated in the rebellion of 1867. It resulted in O'Brien himself becoming actively involved with the Fenian brotherhood, resigning in the mid-1870s, because of what he described in 'Evening Memories' (p. 443–4) as "the gloom of inevitable failure and horrible punishment inseparable from any attempt at separation by force of arms".
As a journalist his attention was attracted in the first place to the suffering of the tenant farmers. Now on the staff of the Freeman's Journal, after touring the Galtee Mountains around Christmas 1877 he published articles describing their conditions. They are generally acknowledged as the earliest example of investigative journalism in Ireland. They later appeared in pamphlet form. With this action he first displayed his belief that only through parliamentary reform and with the new power of the press that public opinion could be influenced to pursue Irish issues constitutionally through open political activity and the ballot box. Not least of all, responding to the hopes of the new Irish Home Rule movement.
United Ireland Editor
In 1878 he met Charles Stewart Parnell MP at a Home Rule meeting. Parnell recognised his exceptional talents as a journalist and writer, influencing his rise to becoming a leading politician of the new generation. He subsequently appointed him in 1881 as editor of the Irish National Land League's journal, United Ireland. His association with Parnell and the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) led to his arrest and imprisonment with Parnell, Dillon, William Redmond and other nationalist leaders in Kilmainham Gaol that October.
During his imprisonment until April 1882 he drafted the famous Land War No Rent Manifesto – a rent-withholding scheme personally led by O'Brien, escalating the conflict between the Land League and Gladstone's government.
Agitator and MP
From 1883 to 1885 O'Brien was elected MP for Mallow. Following the abolition of that constituency he represented Tyrone South from 1885 to 1886, North East Cork from 1887 to 1892, and Cork City from 1892 to 1895 and from 1901 to 1918, in the House of Commons. There were three periods of absence: 1886–7, from 1895 to 1900, and eight months in 1904. Amid the turmoil of Irish politics in the late 19th century he was frequently arrested and imprisoned for his support for various Land League protests.
In 1884, through the newspaper United Ireland he incited a sensational homosexual scandal involving officers at Dublin Castle.
In 1887 O'Brien helped to organise a rent strike with John Mandeville during the Plan of Campaign at the estate of Lady Kingston near Mitchelstown, County Cork. On 9 September, after an 8,000-strong demonstration led by John Dillon MP, three estate tenants were shot dead, and others wounded, by police at the town's courthouse where O'Brien had been brought for trial with Mandeville on charges of incitement under a new Coercion Act. This event became known as the Mitchelstown Massacre. Later that year, thousands of demonstrators marched in London to demand his release from prison, and clashed with police at Trafalgar Square on Bloody Sunday (13 November).
Even in prison, O'Brien continued his protests, refusing to wear prison uniform in 1887. Being left without clothes, a Blarney tweed suit was smuggled in. He occasionally wore this much publicised suit in the Commons when confronting his incarcerator, Arthur Balfour. His imprisonment also inspired protests – notably the 1887 'Bloody Sunday' riots in London. In 1889 he escaped from a courtroom but was sentenced in absentia for conspiracy. He fled to America accompanied by Dillon who was on bail, then to France where both held negotiations with Parnell at Boulogne-sur-Mer over the leadership of the party. When these broke down, both returned to Folkestone giving themselves up, subsequently serving four months in Clonmel and Galway gaols. Here O'Brien began to reconsider his political future, having already been prosecuted nine times over years, using the time to write an acclaimed novel, a Fenian romance with a land reform theme set in 1860: When We Were Boys, which was published in 1890.
Marriage, reorientation
In 1890 he married Sophie Raffalovich, sister of the poet Marc André Sebastian Raffalovich and the economist Arthur Raffalovich, and daughter of the Russian Jewish banker, Hermann Raffalowich, domiciled in Paris. It was to mark a major turning point in O'Brien's personal and political life. His wife brought considerable wealth into the marriage, enabling him to act with political independence and providing finances to establish his own newspapers. His wife (1860–1960) who survived him by over 30 years, gave him considerable moral and emotional support for his political pursuits. Their relationship added to his life an abiding love for France and attachment to Europe, where he often retired to recuperate.
By 1891 he had become disillusioned with Parnell's political leadership, although emotionally loyal to him he tried to persuade him to retire after the O'Shea divorce case. On Parnell's death that year and the ensuing IPP split, he remained aloof from aligning himself with either side of the Party, either the rump pro-Parnellite Irish National League (INL) led by John Redmond MP or with the anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation (INF) group under John Dillon, although he saw the weight of strength in the latter. O'Brien worked hard in the 1893 negotiations leading to the Commons passing Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill, which the Lords however rejected. (Gladstone's speech on the First Home Rule Bill had beseeched Parliament not to reject it).
United Irish League
Distancing himself from the party turmoils, he retired from Parliament in 1895, settling for a while with his wife near Westport, County Mayo, which enabled him to experience at first hand from his Mayo retreat the distressed hardship of the peasantry in the West of Ireland, trying to eke out an existence in its rocky landscape.
Believing strongly that agitational politics combined with constitutional pressures were the best means of achieving objectives, O'Brien established on the 16. January 1898 the United Irish League (UIL) at Westport, with Michael Davitt as co-founder and John Dillon present. It was to be a new grass-roots organisation with a programme to include agrarian agitation, political reform and Home Rule. It coincided with the passing of the revolutionary Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 which broke the power of the landlord dominated "Grand Juries", passing for the first time absolute democratic control of local affairs into the hands of the people through elected Local County Councils.
The UIL was explicitly designed to reconcile the various parliamentary fragments existing since the Parnell split, which proved very popular, its branches sweeping over most of the country organised by its general secretary John O'Donnell, dictating to the demoralised Irish party leaders the terms for reconstruction, not only of the party but the nationalist movement in Ireland. The movement was backed by O'Brien's new newspaper The Irish People.
Around 1900 O'Brien, an unbending social reformer and agrarian agitator, was the most influential and powerful figure within the nationalist movement, although not formally its leader. His UIL was by far the largest organisation in the country, comprising 1150 branches and 84,355 members. The result of the rapid growth of his UIL as a national organisation in achieving unity through organised popular opinion, was to effect a quick defensive reunion of the discredited IPP factions of the INL and the INF, largely fearing O’Brien's return to the political field. He can nevertheless be regarded as the architect of the settlement of 1900. The unity under John Redmond disturbed O’Brien, as it resulted in most of the ineffective party candidates being re-elected in the 1900 general election, preventing the UIL from using its power in the pre-selection of candidates. Within a few years the IPP was however, to tactically adjunct the UIL under its wing manoeuvering it out of O'Brien's control.
Land Act architect
O'Brien next intensified the UIL agitation for land purchase by tenant farmers, pressing for compulsory purchase. He formed an alliance with constructive unionists which resulted in the calling of the December 1902 Land Conference, an initiative by moderate landlords led by Lord Dunraven for a settlement by conciliatory agreement between landlord and tenant. The tenant representation was led by O'Brien, the others were John Redmond, Timothy Harrington and T. W. Russell for the Ulster tenants. After six sittings all eight tenants' demands were conceded (one with compromise), O’Brien having guided the official nationalist movement into endorsement of a new policy of "conference plus business". He followed this by campaigning vigorously for the greatest piece of social legislation Ireland had yet seen, orchestrating the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903 through parliament, which effectively ended landlordism, solving the age old Irish Land Question.
The Act's agreement on land purchase between tenants and landlords resulted in a rush of landlords to sell and of tenants to buy. Though the Act was approved by Redmond, his deputy Dillon disliked the Act because he opposed any co-operation with landlords, while Michael Davitt objected to peasant proprietorship under the Act, demanding land nationalisation. Together with Thomas Sexton editor of the party's Freeman's Journal, all three campaigned against O’Brien, fiercely attacking him for putting Land Purchase and Conciliation before Home Rule. O'Brien appealed to Redmond to suppress their opposition but his call went unheeded. Declaring that he was making no headway with his policy, he resigned his Parliamentary seat in November 1903, closed down his paper the Irish People and left the party for the next five years. It was a serious setback for the party. It also turned once intimate friends into mortal enemies. His Cork electorate however, insisted on pushing through his re-election eight months later in August 1904. O’Brien had failed in his intention of shocking the party to its senses.
During 1904 O'Brien had already embarked on advancing full scale implementation of the Act in alliance with D. D. Sheehan MP and his Irish Land and Labour Association (ILLA), when they formed the Cork Advisory Committee to help tenants in their negotiations. Their collaboration became the new organisational base for O'Brien's political activities. This new alliance aggravated the Dillonite section of the IPP further. Determined to destroy both of them "before they poison the whole country", Dillon and the party published regular denunciations in the Freeman's Journal, then coupéd O'Brien's UIL with the appointment of its new secretary, Dillon's chief lieutenant, Joseph Devlin MP, Grandmaster of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Devlin eventually gaining organisational control over the entire UIL and IPP organisations.
O'Brien had in the meantime engaged with the Irish Reform Association, together with Sir Anthony MacDonnell, a Mayo Catholic originally appointed by Wyndham, and head of the Civil Service in Dublin Castle, anxious to do something for Ireland. MacDonnell helped the reform group to draft a scheme on the possible extension of the principle of self-government for Ireland. On 31 August 1904 the Reform Association released a preliminary report calling for the devolution of larger powers of local government for Ireland. The limited scheme was quickly and equally condemned by O'Brien's opponents, who regarded it nevertheless as a step in the right direction.
Macroom programme
After the financing of tenant land purchase, tenant farmers were now proud proprietors largely in control of local government. The next issue was to provide for extensive rural housing of the tens of thousands of migrant farm labourers struggling to survive in stone cabins, barns or mud hovels. This was a long-standing demand by the ILLA branches and D.D. Sheehan. In 1904 O'Brien then joined forces with Sheehan's ILLA organisation, identifying himself with labourer's grievances and Sheehan's demand for agricultural labourers' housing, who up to then were dependent on limited provision of cottages by local County Councils or landowners at unfavourable terms.
Following large demonstrations addressed by O’Brien and his friends during 1904 which fought and won the field in Charleville and Macroom (County Cork), Kilfinane and Dromcolliher (County Limerick), Tralee and Castleisland (County Kerry), Scariff (County Clare), Goolds Cross (County Tipperary) and Ballycullane (County Wexford), a breakthrough occurred when a scheme was made public at "the largest labour demonstration ever held in Ireland" (Cork Examiner), a memorable rally in Macroom on Sunday 11 December 1904 addressed by William O'Brien. Preaching a gospel of social justice, his concepts became known as the 'Macroom programme'. O'Brien grasped the prime importance of its principles and measures, when during 1905 he pressed and negotiated together with support from Sir Anthony MacDonnell (the Under-Secretary for Ireland) for what was subsequently carried into law and after the January 1906 general election became the ground-breaking Bryce Labourers (Ireland) Act (1906).
Housing drive
The second phase of the Labourers Acts (1906–1914) began after the 1906 Labourers Housing Act, long demanded by the ILLA, was implemented, for which both the Redmondite and O'Brienite factions were zealous in claiming credit. The labourer-owned cottages erected by the Local County Councils brought about a major socio-economic transformation, by simultaneously erasing the previous inhuman habitations. O'Brien saying that the Labourers Acts – "were scarcely less wonderworking than the abolition of landlordism itself". In 1904 Davitt going so far as to declare the foreseen Labourers Act constituted – "a rational principle of state Socialism". This Act had enormous positive long-term consequences for rural Irish society.
The so-called 'Labourers Act' provided large scale funding for extensive state sponsored housing to accommodate rural labourers and others of the working classes. The programme financed and produced during the course of the next five years, the erection of over 40,000 working-class cottages, each on an acre of land, a complete 'municipalisation' of commodious dwellings dotting the rural Irish countryside. This unique social housing programme unparalleled anywhere else in Europe brought about an unsurpassed agrarian revolution, changing the face of the Irish landscape, much to O'Brien's expressed delight.
Renewed publication of O'Brien's newspaper The Irish People (1905–1909) exalting the cottage building, its editorials equally countermanding the IPPs' "Dublin bosses" attempts to curtail the programme, fearing settled rural communities would no longer be dependent on Party and Church. Munster took full advantage, erecting most of the cottages, additional funding providing for a further 5,000 houses under Birrell's Labourers (Ireland) Act 1911. The bulk of the labourers' cottages were erected by 1916, resulting in a widespread decline of rampant tuberculosis, typhoid and scarlet fever.
Turbulent times
In the interest of political unity, O'Brien and other excluded MPs temporarily rejoined the Parliamentary Party when Redmond summoned a unity meeting in the Mansion House, Dublin in April 1908. Later that year, during negotiations for additional funding of land purchase under an amending bill, Redmond called a further UIL National Convention for 9 February 1909 in Dublin to regulate the issues, claiming the bill over-burdened the British Treasury and the rate payers. Over 3000 delegates attended. Devlin had the hall filled in advance with forces of his militant Mollies, so that when O'Brien and his followers tried to speak in favour of the bill, they were battoned into silence. The convention then dubbed the 'Baton' Convention by O'Brien. It was "probably the stormiest meeting ever held by constitutional nationalists".
The bill eventually passed into law as Birrell's Land Purchase Act (1909), but falling far short in its financial provisions.
As an outcome of the "Baton Convention" O’Brien felt himself again driven from the party. He foresaw that the IPP, undermined by the AOH, was on a fatal radical path which would frustrate any All-Ireland Home Rule settlement. As a counter measure he set about establishing a new League, which was to build on the success his combined "doctrine of conciliation" with "conference plus business" achieved during the 1902 Land Conference with landlords and the ensuing 1903 Land Purchase Act. Following his engagement with the Irish Reform Movement 1904-5 and support of the 1907 Irish Council Bill which he viewed as a step in the right direction, or "Home Rule by instalments", he firmly believed all moderate unionists could still be won over to All-Ireland Home Rule. For many nationalists on the other hand, the adoption of a conciliatory approach to the "hereditary enemy" involved too sharp a deviation from traditional thinking.
All-for-Ireland League
In March 1909 he inaugurated the All-for-Ireland League (AFIL) in Kanturk with James Gilhooly MP as Chairman and D. D. Sheehan Hon. Secretary. The AFIL's political objective was the attainment of an All-Ireland parliament with the consent rather than by the compulsion of the Protestant and Unionist community, under the banner of the "Three Cs", for Conference, Conciliation and Consent as applied to Irish politics. The League was supported by many prominent Protestant gentry, leading landlords and Munster business figures. The political activist Canon Sheehan of Doneraile was also a founder member and wrote in a very long editorial for the first issue of the League's new newspaper its political manifesto.
Ill-health striking O’Brien, he departed for Florence, Italy to recuperate, returning for the January 1910 general election, in which the Cork electorate returned eight "O'Brienite" MPs. Throughout 1910 his AFIL movement opposed an Irish Party supported by the Catholic clergy. It returned eight independent AFIL MPs in the December 1910 general election to be O'Brien's new political party. From July 1910 until late 1916 O’Brien published the League's newspaper, the Cork Free Press. Election results published by it showed Independents throughout Ireland had won 30% of votes cast.
O’Brien saw it opportune for a co-operative understanding with Arthur Griffith's moderate Sinn Féin movement, having in common – attaining objectives through "moral protest" – political resistance and agitation rather than militant physical-force. Neither O’Brien nor Griffith advocated total abstentionism from the Commons, and regarded Dominion Home Rule, modelled on Canada or Australia, as acceptable. Although Griffith favoured co-operation, a special Sinn Feín executive council meeting called to consider co-operation regretted it was not possible because its constitution would not allow it. In the following years O’Brien and his party continued to associate themselves with Griffith's movement both in and out of parliament. In June 1918 Griffith asked O’Brien to have the writ moved for his candidacy in the Cavan-east by-election (moved by AFIL MP Eugene Crean) to which Griffith was elected with a sizeable majority.
Home Rule stance
On 2 November 1911 O'Brien proposed full Dominion status similar to that enjoyed by Canada, in an exchange of views with Asquith, as the only viable solution to the "Irish Question". Home Rule became technically assured after a new Home Rule bill was introduced in 1912 with the IPP holding the balance of power at Westminster. During the 1913–14 Parliamentary debates on the Third Home Rule Bill, O'Brien, alarmed by Unionist resistance to the bill, opposed the IPP's coercive "Ulster must follow" policy, and published in the Cork Free Press end of January 1914 specific concession, including a suspensory veto right, which would enable Ulster join a Dublin Parliament "any price for an United Ireland, but never partition". William O'Brien resigned his seat as MP again for a fourth time in January and re-stood to test local support for his policies, after the All-for-Ireland League suffered heavy defeats in the Cork City municipal elections.
After the opening of Parliament in February 1914 the threat of rebellion in Ulster gave O'Brien the opportunity to make an eloquent speech on 24 February calling for generous concessions towards Ulster, but warning he would 'strenuously oppose exclusion'. When the Ulster Volunteers armed in April to resist likely "Rome Rule", Redmond's Irish Volunteers armed likewise to ensure enactment of all-Ireland self-government. During the final stages of the second reading and debate on the Third Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons, which was accompanied by Asquith's guarantee that it would never be enforced without an Amending Bill enacting the exclusion of the six Ulster counties with a Protestant majority, O'Brien made a powerful lengthy speech on 1 April 1914 reiterating at length his proposals to enable Ulster to remain within an All-Ireland settlement, by means of a suspensory veto upon any bill passed by a Dublin Parliament, amongst other rights and protections. Stating "I condemn and abhor with all my heart the preparations of the Ulster Volunteers for even the possibility of slaughter between Irishmen and Irishmen". Otherwise Ireland once divided would remain divided and 'the line on which you are presently travelling will never bring you anything except division and disaster'.
Opposing O'Brien's proposals and initiatives, the Redmond-Dillon-Devlin (IPP-UIL-AOH) hardline alliance remained uncompromising with their standpoint – "no concessions for Ulster". In the Commons on 25 May O'Brien stated that "we are ready for almost any conceivable concession to Ulster that will have the effect of uniting Ireland, but we will struggle to our last breath against a proposal which will divide her, and divide her eternally, if Ireland's own representatives are once consenting parties . . ." O'Brien and his followers held true to their pledge and abstained from the final vote passing the Government of Ireland Act 1914, denouncing the bill as a "ghastly farce" and ultimately as a "partition deal" after Sir Edward Carson, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party forced through an amendment mandating the partition of Ireland. The Irish Nationalists' confrontation course with Ulster had ended in fiasco.
With the outbreak and involvement on 4 August 1914 of Ireland in World War I, Asquith proposed a Suspensory Bill for the Home Rule Bill. It received Royal Assent simultaneously with its counterpart, the Government of Ireland Act 1914, on 18 September. Although the two controversial Bills had now finally reached the statute books, the Suspensory Act ensured that Home Rule would be postponed for the duration of the conflict. In the debate on 15 September in the House of Commons concerning the Suspensory Bill, O'Brien made it again clear "that while we are prepared to pay almost any other price for a general national settlement, there is one price which some of us, at all events, will never in any possible circumstances consent to pay, and that is the dismemberment of our ancient Irish nation". He concluded by turning to 'our fellow countrymen in Ulster' in proposing to secure for them a position of undiminished citizenship in this Empire under some projected scheme of federalism.
Last crusade
O'Brien saw the outbreak of World War I in August as an opportunity to undertake a last crusade to preserve at any price the unity of Ireland, by uniting the Green and Orange in a common cause, declaring himself on the side of the Allied and Britain's European war effort. O'Brien was the first Nationalist leader to call on Irish Volunteers for the front. Towards the end of August he had an interview with Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, and laid before him a scheme for raising an Irish Army Corps embracing all classes and creeds, South and North. Kitchener (incidentally a Protestant and born in County Kerry) favoured the idea. O’Brien immediately summoned a meeting held in the Cork Town Hall under the auspices of the All-for-Ireland League on 2 September, the hall packed with an enthusiastic audience of men and women. In a speech that far exceeded Redmond's in favour of its adherence to England's cause, he said:- :
O'Brien later wrote: "Whether Home Rule is to have a future will depend upon the extent to which the Nationalists in combination with Ulster Covenanters, do their part in the firing line on the fields of France". He stood on recruiting platforms with the other National leaders and spoke out encouragingly in favour of voluntary enlistment in the Royal Munster Fusiliers and other Irish regiments.
Changing tides
O'Brien, alarmed at the increased activity of Sinn Féin in 1915, predicted the danger of a potential republican eruption, culminating in the IRB 1916 Rebellion, in which however Sinn Féin were not involved. He was forced to cease publication of his Cork Free Press in 1916 soon after the appointment of Lord Decies as Chief Press Censor for Ireland. Decies warned the press to be careful about what they published. Such warnings had little effect when dealing with such papers as the Cork Free Press. It was suppressed after its republican editor, Frank Gallagher, accused the British authorities of lying about the conditions and situation of republican prisoners in the Frongoch internment camp.
O'Brien accepted the Rising and the ensuing changed political climate in 1917 as the best way of ridding the country of IPP and AOH stagnation. Home Rule had been lost in 1913, an inflexible IPP long out of touch with reality, reflected by Britain's two failed attempts to introduce Home Rule in 1916 and again in 1917. O'Brien refused to participate in the Irish Convention after southern unionist representatives he had proposed were turned down. During the Convention Redmond belatedly adopted O’Brien's policy of accommodating Unionist opposition both from the North and from the South. But it was ten years too late. Had he joined O’Brien earlier and carried the Irish Party with him, it is probable that Ireland's destiny would have been settled by evolution. The Convention ended in failure as O'Brien predicted when Britain attempted to link the enactment of Home Rule with conscription.
During the anti-conscription crisis in April 1918 O'Brien and his AFIL left the House of Commons and joined Sinn Féin and other prominentaries in the mass protests in Dublin. Seeing no future for his conciliatory political concepts in a future election, he believed Sinn Féin in its moderate form had earned the right to represent nationalist interests. He and the other members of his All-for-Ireland League party stood aside putting their seats at the disposal of Sinn Féin, its candidates returned unopposed in the December 1918 general elections. In an address to the election he had said: "We cannot subscribe to a programme of armed resistance in the field, or even of permanent withdrawal from Westminster; but to the spirit of Sinn Féin, as distinct from its abstract programme, the great mass of independent single-minded Irishmen have been won over, and accordingly they ought now to have a full and sympathetic trial for enforcing the Irish nation's right of self-determination."
O'Brien disagreed with the establishment of a southern Irish Free State under the Treaty, still believing that Partition of Ireland was too high a price to pay for partial independence. He wrote in 1923, "It is now obvious enough that, had the Irish Council Bill been allowed to pass in 1907, the Partition of Ireland would never have been heard of." Retiring from political life, he contented himself with writing and declined Éamon de Valera's offer to stand for Fianna Fáil in the 1927 general election. He died suddenly on 25 February 1928 while on a visit to London with his wife at the age of 75. His remains rest in Mallow, and one of the principal streets in the town bears his name to this day, as does Great William O'Brien Street in Cork. His head-bust overlooks the town Council's Chamber Room and a portrait of O'Brien hangs in University College Cork.
In 1920 Arthur Griffith said of O'Brien: "The task of William O’Brien's generation was well and bravely done, had it not been so the work we are carrying out in this generation would have been impossible. In that great work none of Parnell's lieutenants did so much as William O’Brien."
Works
O'Brien's books, a number of which are collections of his journalistic writings and political speeches, include:
Christmas on the Galtees (1878) Ballybeg Village Irish Christmas
When we were boys (1890)
Irish Ideas (1893) Irish Ideas (1893)
A Queen of Men, Grace O'Malley (1898)
Recolections (1905)
The Downfall of Parliamentarianism (1918)
Evening Memories (1920)
The Responsibility for Partition (1921)
Edmund Burke as an Irishman (1924)
Notes
References
Further reading
Schilling, Friedrich K.: William O'Brien and the All-for-Ireland League, thesis (1956), Trinity College Dublin
Miller, David W.: Church, State and Nation in Ireland 1898–1921, Gill & Macmillan (1973)
Clifford, Brendan: Cork Free Press An Account of Ireland's only Democratic Anti-Partition Movement, Athol Books, Belfast (1984)
Warwick-Halle, Sally: William O'Brien and the Irish land war, Irish Academic Press, Dublin (1990)
Callanan, Frank: T. M Healy, Cork University Press (1996)
Hickey, D.J. & Doherty, J.E.: A new Dictionary of Irish History from 1800, pp. 353–54, Gill & MacMillan (2003)
External links
Maume, Patrick: History Ireland article feature: A nursery of editors: the Cork Free Press, 1910–16
William O'Brien and the United-Irish-League-in-Cork-1900-1910
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United Irish League |
422813 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt%20Rutan | Burt Rutan | Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (; born June 17, 1943) is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which in 1986 was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest (342 mph/551 km/h in 67 hours) and longest (25,766 miles/41,466 km) nonstop non-refueled circumnavigation flight in history. In 2004, Rutan's sub-orbital spaceplane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space, winning the Ansari X-Prize that year for achieving the feat twice within a two-week period.
With his VariEze and Long-EZ designs, which first flew in 1975 and 1979 respectively, Rutan is responsible for helping popularize both the canard configuration and the use of moldless composite construction in the homebuilt aircraft industry, the latter a technique that was adopted in several production and commercial aircraft in the following decades as well. He is the founder or co-founder of multiple aerospace companies, including the Rutan Aircraft Factory, Scaled Composites, Mojave Aerospace Ventures, and The Spaceship Company.
Rutan has designed 46 aircraft throughout his career, been included in the Time 100 Most Influential People in the World list for the year 2004, been the co-recipient of both the Collier and National Air and Space Museum trophies on two occasions (each for his accomplishments with Voyager in 1986 and SpaceShipOne in 2004), received six honorary doctoral degrees, and has won over 100 different awards for aerospace design and development. In 1995, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. Rutan has five aircraft on display in the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum: the VariEze, Quickie, Voyager, SpaceShipOne, and the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer. He is the younger brother of former test pilot and United States Air Force fighter pilot Dick Rutan, who has piloted many of his earlier original designs on class record-breaking flights.
Life and career
Burt Rutan was born in 1943 in Estacada, Oregon, near Portland, and raised in Dinuba, California. He was one of three children born to George (a dentist) and Irene Rutan. His sister, Nell Rutan, is a former flight attendant for American Airlines. He displayed an early interest in aircraft design. By the time he was eight years old, Rutan was designing and building model aircraft. His first solo flight piloting an airplane was in an Aeronca Champ in 1959, at age 16. In 1965, he graduated third in his class from the California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo) with a BS degree in aeronautical engineering.
From 1965 to 1972, Rutan was a civilian flight test project engineer for the U.S. Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base, working on nine projects including the LTV XC-142 VSTOL transport and spin tests of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II fighter. He left to become Director of Development of the BD-5 aircraft for Bede Aircraft in Newton, Kansas, a position he held until 1974.
In June 1974, Rutan returned to California to establish the Rutan Aircraft Factory. In this business he designed and developed prototypes for several aircraft, mostly intended for amateur builders. His first design, executed while he was still at Bede, was the VariViggen, a two-seat pusher single-engine craft of canard configuration. The canard would become a feature of many Rutan designs, notably the very popular VariEze and Long-EZ. He is also known for using exotic and unconventional materials in his designs. He was the first to use moldless composite construction. According to him, he started his composite work by copying the concept used in the repair of molded European sailplanes. His innovation was the adoption of the method not for repair but to build an aircraft with hotwire wing cores and hand-carved foam for the fuselage box. This method allowed Rutan to build a plane without a mold.
In April 1982, Rutan founded Scaled Composites, LLC, which has become one of the world's pre-eminent aircraft design and prototyping facilities. Scaled Composites is headquartered in Mojave, California, at the Mojave Air & Space Port. That same year, Beechcraft contracted Rutan's Scaled Composites to refine the design and build the prototype Beechcraft Starship.
In 1987, Rutan received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. In 1988, he was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum and in 1995, the National Aviation Hall of Fame at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Rutan was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1989 for leading the engineering, design, construction, and testing of a series of aircraft, including Voyager. In 2004, after SpaceShipOne flew, he was listed as one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" and as Inc. magazine's "Entrepreneur of the Year". In 2005, he received the NAS Award in Aeronautical Engineering from the National Academy of Sciences. In the same year, he was awarded the Robert J. Collier Trophy, which he also obtained in 1986 for his design and development of the Voyager 15.
In 2007, Northrop Grumman became the sole owner of Rutan's Scaled Composites.
In a 2010 Big Think interview, Rutan articulated his motivation for developing suborbital spaceflight technology projects with SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo. In it he said, "we can achieve some breakthroughs", making such flight "orders of magnitude safer and orders of magnitude more affordable. I'm taking this step because I think achieving something that has never existed in manned spaceflight – and that is high volume and public access – I think it is important to do that and to do it as soon as possible."
He retired from Scaled Composites in April 2011. That same year, he received the Daniel Guggenheim Medal and became recognized as a Living Legend of Aviation, receiving the Bob Hoover Freedom of Flight Award from the Kiddie Hawk Air Academy. In 2012, Rutan spoke on "Innovation and the Space Race" to the World Affairs Council, as recorded on C-Span. Flying magazine ranked him at number 18 on their 2013 list, "51 Heroes of Aviation". Rutan was also a recipient of the prestigious Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy in 2015. In 2021, he received his second eponymous Bob Hoover award with the AOPA's R.A. "Bob" Hoover Trophy, given to "people in the industry who have made major contributions over the course of their careers to key areas within general aviation."
In 2022, the Mojave Air and Space Port was given the name "Rutan Field" in honor of the Rutan brothers' contributions to the airport, its board stating that the Rutans' aviation achievements "have played a key role in the evolution of the aerospace industry and the success of the Mojave Air & Space Port organization."
Burt is married to Tonya Rutan and together they have two children.
Aircraft designs
In a 45-year career, many of Rutan's designs have often been quite dissimilar from their predecessors. The Los Angeles Times said of his designs: "His airplanes and spacecraft take on all types of sleek shapes and sizes, looking more like the work of a sculptor than an engineer. In all, Rutan has come up with 367 individual concepts—of which 45 have flown."
Homebuilt aircraft
VariViggen and VariViggen SP
In 1968, he began building his first design, the VariViggen, which first flew in April 1972. It had the rear wing, forward canard, and pusher configuration design elements which became his trademarks. In lieu of wind tunnel testing, Rutan developed aerodynamic parameters for the VariViggen using a model rigged atop his station wagon, and measured the forces while driving on empty roads.
The VariViggen was the Rutan model 27. A new set of outer wings, with winglets, was later developed by Rutan for the VariViggen, producing the VariViggen SP, Rutan model 32. The VariViggen was named in honor of the Saab 37 Viggen, a canard-configured fighter jet developed in Sweden. One VariViggen, built in France and named Micro Star, was powered by two Microturbo TRS-18 jet engines in lieu of the usual piston engine.
VariEze and Long-EZ
The VariViggen design led to the successful VariEze (pronounced "very easy") homebuilt aircraft designs, in which he pioneered the use of moldless glass-reinforced plastic construction in homebuilts. The prototype, designated Model 31, made its public debut at the 1975 EAA Convention and Fly-In (now called AirVenture) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. That same year, his brother Dick Rutan set a world distance record in the under-500 kg (1100 lb) class in the VariEze, and these aircraft went on to set other world records in this class.
They were also the first aircraft to fly with NASA-developed winglets.
Rutan later revised the VariEze design, providing more volume for fuel and cargo, resulting in the Rutan model 61 Long-EZ, designed to be powered by a Lycoming O-235, although some have used Lycoming O-320s or Lycoming O-360s. The Long-EZ had a range of , over twice that of the VariEze. The Long-EZ also has a revised wing spar design that is not subject to the 2.5 g positive, 1.5 g negative, maximum load factor limit applied to the VariEze after the discovery of problems with some VariEze wings.
Quickie
Rutan was approached by Gene Sheehan and Tom Jewett to develop a single-seat personal sport aircraft. Following a preliminary canard project (model 49), a tandem wing configuration was eventually designed, to be powered by an 18 hp Onan industrial engine. The prototype (Rutan model 54) was built in 1977 and registered as N77Q. After 5 months of testing, Quickie Aircraft marketed the aircraft as the Rutan model 54 Quickie in 1978.
Two derivatives of the Quickie were subsequently developed, both expanded to include two seats. Quickie Aircraft had Gary LaGare develop the Q2, while Viking Aircraft developed the Viking Dragonfly.
Solitaire
The 1982 Sailplane Homebuilders Association (Now the Experimental Soaring Association) opened a competition for a homebuilt, self-launching sailplane. Rutan designed the model 77 Solitaire for this competition, which it won. The sailplane was canard-configured, with a retractable engine ahead of the cockpit.
Research aircraft
Grizzly
Rutan designed the model 72 Grizzly to investigate the possibility of a STOL canard aircraft. It was retired after testing in 1982.
Lotus Microlight
Rutan was approached by Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus Cars, to design a single-seat ultralight aircraft. Again, a canard configuration was developed, the Rutan model 91. Colin Chapman's untimely death in 1982 brought this project to an end, after the aircraft had flown.
Ames AD-1
In the 1980s NASA issued a contract to Ames Industrial Company of Bohemia, New York to develop a small, low-cost aircraft to investigate Robert T. Jones's (a NASA researcher at NASA's Ames Research Center) oblique wing concept. Ames turned to Rutan, who designed a small, fiberglass airframe, powered by two Microturbo TRS-18 jet engines. This was the Rutan model 35, the Ames AD-1. After completion of the test program, the AD-1 was retired in 1982 and is now on exhibit in the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California.
ARES
The Scaled Composites ARES, also called the "Mudfighter", is a full-size flying and shooting prototype of a lightweight low cost aircraft with a similar ground attack and support role as the A-10. The aircraft first flew in 1990.
Boomerang
A departure from the canard design was the 1996 Boomerang, perhaps one of the unconventional designer's most unconventional aircraft. The aircraft, the Rutan model 202 Boomerang, is an asymmetric twin-engine tractor configuration aircraft with one engine on the fuselage and another mounted on a pod. A November 1996 Popular Mechanics feature article said it "looks more like a trimotor that lost its right boom and engine".
BiPod
The BiPod, Rutan's latest design in association with his company Scaled Composites, is a hybrid flying car. Announced in July 2011, the twin-pod vehicle has a wingspan of 31 feet 10 inches; with the wings reconfigured (stowed between the pods), the car has a width of 7 feet 11 inches and fits in a single-car garage. The design has two 450 cc four-cycle engines, one in each pod, which power a pair of generators that in turn power the electric motors used for propulsion. "Lithium-ion batteries in the nose of each pod will provide power during take off and an emergency backup for landing. With a cruising speed of , Scaled says the Model 367 BiPod would have a range of ." The plane can fly at which reduces the range to . "Out on the road, this roadable aircraft, which carries of fuel, is expected to have a driving range of 820 miles. It has a claimed electric-only range of 35 miles." Flight controls are in the right pod, road controls (steering wheel and brakes) in the left.
Performance aircraft
Amsoil Racer
The Rutan model 68 Amsoil Racer was a racing aircraft of Quickie configuration, built in 1981. It set several speed records, but crashed at the 1983 Reno Air Races and was unsalvageable.
Voyager
The Rutan model 76 Voyager was the first airplane to fly nonstop, without refueling around the world. Piloted by Rutan's brother Dick and Jeana Yeager the airplane made the round the world flight over 9 days in December 1986. Around-the-world flights had been accomplished by military crews using in-flight refueling.
Burt developed a twin-engined (piston engines, one pusher and one tractor) canard-configured design. The pusher engine ran continuously, the tractor engine was used for take-off and initial climb to altitude, then was shut down.
The aircraft was first flown with two Lycoming O-235 engines. After development work, it was reengined with a Continental O-200 (modified to include liquid cooling) as the pusher engine and a Continental O-240 as the tractor engine.
As a proving flight the aircraft made a record setting endurance flight off the coast of California. In December 1986, they took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California and flew around the world (westward) in nine days, fulfilling the aircraft's design goals and setting multiple world absolute flight distance records. The Voyager was retired and now hangs in the Milestones of Flight exhibit in the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) main exhibit hall, with the Wright Flyer, Spirit of St. Louis and Bell X-1.
Burt and Dick Rutan, along with Yeager, made headlines for their efforts as the Voyager team and received the 1986 Collier Trophy and Presidential Citizens Medal from President Ronald Reagan.
Catbird
The Scaled Composites Model 81 Catbird is a five-seat, single-engined pressurized airplane. The airplane was configured as a three-surface aircraft (canard, main wing, and tail) and first flew in 1988. After serving as Rutan's personal airplane, it was retired. The Catbird is notable for winning the CAFE Challenge aircraft efficiency prize in 1993.
Pond Racer
The 1991 Pond Racer was an Unlimited Class racing airplane. Concerned about the dwindling numbers of World War II aircraft, with many being consumed by use as Unlimited Class racers at the Reno Air Races, Bob Pond contracted Rutan and Scaled to design and build an Unlimited Class racer. After design studies, a twin-engined, conventional configured layout was chosen. The aircraft was powered by two Electromotive-Nissan VG-30 3-liter GTP piston engines running on methanol. The aircraft was built and tested before delivery to the customer. It appeared at the Reno Air Races in 1991, 1992 and 1993. The aircraft was destroyed in a forced landing crash on September 14, 1993, killing pilot Rick Brickert.
Proteus
The Model 281 Proteus is a tandem-wing high-endurance aircraft designed by Rutan and built by Scaled Composites to investigate the use of aircraft as high altitude telecommunications relays. The aircraft's requirements were designed by Angel Technologies and Broadband.com. Its first flights were in 1998. It holds several altitude records, set in 2000.
GlobalFlyer
On March 3, 2005, the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, an aircraft similar to the Voyager design but built by Scaled using stiffer materials and a single jet engine, completed the first solo non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world with adventurer Steve Fossett as pilot. Reducing weight was critical to the design, and Rutan is quoted as facetiously telling his staff that when they finish building a part, they must throw it up in the air for a weight test, and "If it comes down, it's too heavy". Between February 7, 2006 and February 11, 2006, Fossett and the GlobalFlyer set a record for the longest flight in history: , the third absolute world record set with this aircraft before being flown to the NASM Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The Global Flyer is the sixth aerospace vehicle designed by Rutan in the NASM collection.
SkiGull
The SkiGull is an amphibious aircraft that was publicly announced at the 2015 EAA AirVenture gathering, post Rutan's retirement. His most recent design, the aircraft is a two-seat composite/titanium aircraft equipped with a retractable ski undercarriage that can have wheels attached for water, snow or land operations, landing on around of surface but with a range to cross oceans. It has two electric motors with forward-folding reversible propellers to simplify docking and give optional takeoff power. The SkiGull is being developed and funded privately, and had its first test flight in November 2015.
Contracted aircraft
Triumph
The 1988 Scaled Composites Triumph was a twin-engine, business jet prototype designed and built for Beechcraft. The aircraft is a three lifting surface design, with both a small forward wing, and a small conventional horizontal stabilizer in a T-tail configuration.
Visionair Vantage
The VisionAire VA-10 Vantage is a prototype single-engined light business-jet (or "very light jet", also known as VLJ) developed by VisionAire Jets Corporation. In 1996 Rutan designed the first prototype, a proof-of-concept aircraft intended to confirm the design's handling, which resulted in several problems and a redesign of the aircraft in 1998.
V-Jet II
The Williams V-Jet II, which first flew in 1997, was a VLJ designed and built as a test bed and demonstrator aircraft for Williams International's new FJX-1 turbofan engine. It served as the design inspiration for the Eclipse 500, and was retired in 2001.
Adam M-309
The Adam M-309 CarbonAero was a technology demonstrator six-seat civil utility aircraft designed by Rutan and built by Scaled Composites in the early 2000s. It developed into the A500, which is produced by Adam Aircraft Industries.
Stratolaunch
In 2011, Rutan and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen announced the Stratolaunch, a space launch carrier aircraft built by Scaled Composites for Allen's Stratolaunch Systems to carry air launch to orbit rockets.
Spacecraft designs
SpaceShipOne
Rutan made headlines again in June 2004 with SpaceShipOne, which became the first privately built, flown and funded manned craft to reach space. The project, named "Tier One" (later known as Tier 1b), was developed and flown by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which is part-owned by Scaled Composites and was a joint venture between Paul Allen and Rutan, with an estimated development cost of US$25 million (provided entirely by Allen). On October 4, the SpaceShipOne team won the Ansari X Prize of US$10 million, completing two flights within two weeks, flying with the equivalent weight of 3 persons, and doing so while reusing at least 80% of the vehicle hardware. The two flights were piloted by Mike Melville and Brian Binnie respectively. The project team was honored with the 2004 Collier Trophy, awarded by the National Aeronautic Association for "greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America". The craft embodies Rutan's unique style, and is another of the "icons of flight" displayed in the NASM Milestones of Flight exhibit. As the first privately-funded spacecraft, it helped spur the beginning of the global private space race.
SpaceShipTwo Project
Virgin Galactic—an offshoot of businessman and investor Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group, and the parent company of Branson and Rutan's 2005 spacecraft manufacturing startup The Spaceship Company—announced that it would begin space tourism flights in 2008 using craft based on the designs of SpaceShipOne. Dubbed SpaceShipTwo, these new craft, also designed by Rutan, are intended to allow six "experience optimized" passengers to glimpse the planet from 70 to 80 miles up in suborbital space. Production of the first of five planned SpaceShipTwo craft has started, but commercial flights did not begin in 2008 as planned. An explosion at the Scaled Composite factory at the Mojave Spaceport on July 26, 2007, which killed three engineers and seriously injured three others, may have contributed to the delay. They were testing components for SpaceShipTwo, but Scaled Composites remained dedicated to perfecting the design of SpaceShipTwo. Virgin continues to work on developing SpaceShipTwo, but it has stopped predicting when commercial spaceflights will begin. A further SpaceshipTwo accident on October 31, 2014 (VSS Enterprise tail number: N339SS) resulted in the death of copilot Michael Alsbury and injuries to the pilot.
Rutan was also working with t/Space in the mid-2000s on the development of an air launched, two-stage-to-orbit, manned spacecraft. It was intended to have a taxi capacity to carry passengers to the International Space Station. In June 2005, air drop tests of quarter scale mockups verified the practicality of air release and rotation to vertical.
White Knight One and Two
On July 28, 2008, Richard Branson unveiled Scaled Composites White Knight Two Eve, at the Mojave Spaceport. The jet-powered cargo aircraft is based on SpaceShipOne's successful mothership, White Knight One, which was designed by Rutan and based on Proteus. Flight tests were set to begin in September 2008. The launch customer of White Knight Two is Virgin Galactic, which will have the first 2 units, and exclusive rights to the craft for the first few years. In 2008, Branson predicted that the maiden space voyage would take place within 18 months: "It represents ... the chance for our ever-growing group of future astronauts and other scientists to see our world in a completely new light." Virgin Galactic contracted Rutan to build the mothership and spacecraft.
Retirement and post-retirement work
On November 3, 2010, Scaled Composites announced the retirement of Rutan:
"Burt Rutan, founder of aerospace research firm Scaled Composites in 1982, had announced his plans to retire in April 2011. He currently serves as Scaled's chief technical officer and, following his retirement, Burt will assume the title of founder and chairman emeritus. Burt has worked in California's Antelope Valley for more than 45 years, initially as flight test project engineer for the Air Force and in 1974 he founded the Rutan Aircraft Factory to develop experimental aircraft for homebuilders."
"Burt is known worldwide as a legendary genius in aircraft design in the aviation world. I am very fortunate and proud to have worked by his side for the past 28 years", says President Douglas B. Shane. "We wish Burt and his wife, Tonya, the very best the future holds for them."
On April 1, 2011, Rutan retired from Scaled Composites to his home in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
Rutan has continued working out of his home in retirement on various designs since stepping down from Scaled Composites in 2011. That year he said that he was working on one more innovative design.
In July 2011, this was revealed to be a hybrid flying car, the Model 367 BiPod.
In 2015 he began water and flight testing a prototype of a new amphibian aircraft, the Rutan SkiGull, intended to be capable of flying between Hawaii and California, cruising at , taking off or landing in about on challenging surfaces including rough terrain, seas, grass, snow, or ordinary runways, fueled by ordinary automotive or marine gasoline, and having small electric motors for power assists or emergency landing.
Rutan also advised on the design of the Paul Allen-funded Stratolaunch space launch carrier since retiring in 2011, which is the world's largest airplane by wingspan, and in 2019 announced that he was working on a new eVTOL.
Awards and accolades (partial list)
Rutan has received numerous awards and honors for aerospace design and development throughout his over 50-year-long career. Below is a list of some of his most notable tributes and accolades.
Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)'s August Raspet Award (1976)
Presidential Citizens Medal (1986)
National Aeronautic Association (NAA)'s Collier Trophy (1986 and 2004)
National Aviation Hall of Fame Inductee (1995)
EAA's Freedom of Flight Award (1996)
Listed among the Time 100 (2004)
Inc. "Entrepreneur of the Year" (2004)
The Explorers Club Medal (2005)
National Space Society (NSS)'s Von Braun Award (2005)
National Air and Space Museum Trophy (2005 and 2012)
NSS's Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award (2008)
Kiddie Hawk Air Academy's Living Legends of Aviation Award (2011)
Daniel Guggenheim Medal (2011)
Ranked No. 18 in Flying "51 Heroes of Aviation" (2013)
NAA's Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy (2015)
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA)'s Bob Hoover Trophy (2021)
See also
Rutan Defiant, homebuilt with twin push-pull engines and 4 seats
Hugo Junkers, German engineer and aircraft designer, considered the first aerospace airframe materials innovator, with the all-metal J 1 in 1915
Klapmeier brothers, founders of Cirrus Aircraft, inaugurated major change in production airframe manufacturing, with the all-composite SR20 in 1999
Paul Poberezny, founder of the Experimental Aircraft Association and EAA Annual Convention & Fly-In, designed and built several homebuilt aircraft
Black Sky: The Race for Space, a 2005 documentary about Rutan, SpaceShipOne and the Ansari X Prize
References
External links
Stargazer - online resource on every known Rutan project
Rutan online biography
National Aviation Hall of Fame biography
Rutan speech "The real future of space exploration" (TED2006), Monterey, CA; recorded February 2006 (duration: 20 min)
Articles
The Designer: Burt Rutan - Airport Journals (2005)
The wit and wisdom of Burt Rutan - The Space Review (2011)
Burt Rutan: Icon of Homebuilding and Space Travel - Aircraft Spruce (2012)
1943 births
Living people
Aircraft designers
American aerospace engineers
American aerospace businesspeople
American aviators
Aviation inventors
Aviation pioneers
California Polytechnic State University alumni
Collier Trophy recipients
Engineers from California
Engineers from Oregon
National Aviation Hall of Fame inductees
People from Dinuba, California
People from Estacada, Oregon
Presidential Citizens Medal recipients
Space advocates |
422814 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%20Osborne | George Osborne | George Gideon Oliver Osborne (born Gideon Oliver Osborne; 23 May 1971) is a former British politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and as First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the Cameron government. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 2001 to 2017. He was editor of the Evening Standard from 2017 to 2020.
The son of the Osborne & Little co-founder and baronet Peter Osborne, Osborne was born in Paddington and educated at Norland Place School, Colet Court and St Paul's School before studying at Magdalen College, Oxford. After working briefly as a freelancer for The Daily Telegraph, he joined the Conservative Research Department in 1994 and became head of its political section. He went on to be a special adviser to Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Douglas Hogg and work for John Major at 10 Downing Street, including on Major's unsuccessful 1997 general election campaign. In Opposition, he worked as a speechwriter and political secretary to Major's successor as party leader, William Hague.
Osborne was elected as MP for Tatton in 2001, becoming the youngest Conservative member of the House of Commons. He was appointed Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury by Conservative leader Michael Howard in 2004. The following year he ran David Cameron's successful party leadership campaign, and was subsequently appointed Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. After the 2010 general election, Osborne was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Cameron–Clegg coalition. He succeeded Alistair Darling, inheriting a large deficit in government finances due to the effects of the late-2000s financial crisis. As Chancellor, Osborne's tenure pursued austerity policies aimed at reducing the budget deficit and launched the Northern Powerhouse initiative. After the Conservatives won an overall majority in the 2015 general election, Cameron reappointed him Chancellor in his second government and gave him the additional title of First Secretary of State. He was widely viewed as a potential successor to David Cameron as Leader of the Conservative Party; one Conservative MP, Nadhim Zahawi, suggested that the closeness of his relationship with Cameron meant that the two effectively shared power during the duration of the Cameron governments. Following the 2016 referendum vote to leave the European Union and Cameron's consequent resignation, he was dismissed by Cameron's successor, Theresa May.
Osborne served on the backbenches for a year before leaving public office at the 2017 general election. He was editor of the Evening Standard from 2017 to 2020. He has been chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP) since 2016 and of the British Museum since 2021.
Early life and education
Osborne was born in Paddington, London, as Gideon Oliver Osborne. His father is Sir Peter Osborne, 17th Baronet, co-founder of the firm of fabric and wallpaper designers Osborne & Little. His mother is Felicity Alexandra Loxton-Peacock, the daughter of Hungarian-born Jewish artist Clarisse Loxton-Peacock (née Fehér). He is the eldest of four boys. He decided when he was 13 to be known by the additional first name of 'George'. In an interview in July 2005, he said: "It was my small act of rebellion. I never liked it [the name 'Gideon']. When I finally told my mother she said, 'Nor do I'. So I decided to be George after my grandfather [Sir George Francis Osborne, 16th Baronet], who was a war hero. Life was easier as a George; it was a straightforward name." Osborne is to inherit his father's baronetcy; he would thus become Sir George Osborne, 18th Baronet.
Osborne was educated at private schools: Norland Place School, Colet Court and St Paul's School. In 1990 he was awarded a demyship at Magdalen College, Oxford, where in 1993 he received a 2:1 bachelor's degree in Modern History. Whilst there, he was a member of the Bullingdon Club. He also attended Davidson College in North Carolina for a semester, as a Dean Rusk Scholar.
In 1993, Osborne intended to pursue a career in journalism. He was shortlisted for, but failed to gain a place on, The Times trainee scheme; he also applied to The Economist, where he was interviewed and rejected by Gideon Rachman. In the end, he had to settle for freelance work on the 'Peterborough' diary column in The Daily Telegraph. One of his Oxford friends, journalist George Bridges, alerted Osborne some time later to a research vacancy at Conservative Central Office.
Early political career
Osborne joined the Conservative Research Department in 1994, and became head of its Political Section. One of his first roles was to go to Blackpool and observe the October 1994 Labour Party Conference.
Between 1995 and 1997 he worked as a special adviser to Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Douglas Hogg (during the BSE crisis), and in the Political Office at 10 Downing Street. Osborne worked on Prime Minister John Major's campaign team in 1997, in the run-up to the Tories' heavy election defeat that year. After the election, he again considered journalism, approaching The Times to be a leader writer, though nothing came of it.
Between 1997 and 2001 he worked for William Hague, Major's successor as Conservative Party leader, as a speechwriter and political secretary. He helped to prepare Hague for the weekly session of Prime Minister's Questions, often playing the role of Prime Minister Tony Blair. Under the subsequent leaderships of Michael Howard and David Cameron, he remained on the Prime Minister's Questions team.
Member of Parliament
Osborne was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton, Cheshire, at the June 2001 election. He succeeded Independent MP Martin Bell, who had defeated the controversial former Conservative minister Neil Hamilton in 1997 but had kept his promise not to stand there at the following election. Osborne won with a majority of 8,611 over the Labour candidate, becoming (at that time) the youngest Conservative MP in the House of Commons. At the 2005 election he was re-elected with an increased majority of 11,731 (securing 51.8% of the vote), and in 2010 increased his majority still further to 14,487.
Shadow Chancellor (2005–2010)
He was appointed in September 2004 by then Conservative leader Michael Howard to the Shadow Cabinet, as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
Following the 2005 general election, Howard promoted him to Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer at the young age of 33. Howard had initially offered the post to William Hague, who turned it down. Press reports suggest that the second choice for the post was David Cameron, who also rejected the job, preferring to take on a major public service portfolio (he was made Shadow Secretary of State for Education). Thus, Howard seems to have turned to Osborne as his third choice for the role. His promotion prompted speculation he would run for the leadership of the Conservative Party when Howard stepped down, but he ruled himself out within a week. Osborne served as campaign manager for David Cameron's leadership campaign, and kept the Shadow Chancellor's post when Cameron became leader later that year.
When David Cameron was asked in 2009 whether or not he would be willing to sack a close colleague such as Osborne, he stated, "With George, the answer is yes. He stayed in my shadow cabinet not because he is a friend, not because we are godfathers to each other's children but because he is the right person to do the job. I know and he knows that if that was not the case he would not be there."
At this time Osborne expressed an interest in the ideas of "tax simplification" (including the idea of flat tax). He set up a "Tax Reform Commission" in October 2005 to investigate ideas for how to create a "flatter, simpler" tax system. The system then proposed would reduce the income tax rate to a flat 22%, and increase the personal allowance from £4,435 to between £10,000 and £15,500. However, the idea of a flat tax was not included in the 2010 Conservative Party manifesto.
Comments on Gordon Brown
During Osborne's response to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown's Pre-Budget Report on 5 December 2005, he accused Brown of being "a Chancellor past his sell-by-date, a Chancellor holding Britain back". In an interview the same week, he also referred to Brown as "brutal" and "unpleasant". Osborne was rebuked in October 2006 by Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons, when he attacked the Chancellor at Oral Questions by citing a comment attributed to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions John Hutton, describing the Chancellor as likely to make an "effing awful" Prime Minister. It was widely suggested that Osborne was leading an assault on Brown that would allow the Conservatives to discredit him without damaging David Cameron's public image. That month, Osborne faced criticism from some quarters for appearing to suggest that Brown was "faintly autistic". After Osborne spoke in an interview about his own ability to recall odd facts, a host suggested to him that he may have been "faintly autistic"; he responded by saying that "We're not getting onto Gordon Brown yet".
Pledge to match Labour spending
In September 2007, ahead of the publication of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review, Osborne pledged that the Conservative Party would match Labour's public spending plans for the next three years. He promised increases in public spending of 2% a year, and said Labour charges that the Conservatives would cut public spending were "a pack of lies". He also ruled out any "upfront, unfunded tax cuts".
Deripaska claim
Osborne's school and university contemporary, financier Nathaniel Rothschild, said in October 2008 that Osborne had tried to solicit a £50,000 donation from the Russian aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, which would have been a violation of the law against political donations by foreign citizens. Rothschild had hosted Deripaska, Osborne, Peter Mandelson and others at a party in his villa in Corfu. The alleged solicitation of a donation occurred on Deripaska's yacht during the party.
The Electoral Commission received a formal complaint initiated in a letter by the Liberal Democrats' Home Affairs spokesperson, Chris Huhne, urging them to investigate the allegations against Osborne. The Commission rejected the claims and said it saw "no information" suggesting an offence. The accusation was referred to by the press as 'Yachtgate'. Osborne denied claims he had attempted to solicit a donation from Deripaska and said that he had "made a mistake" by meeting with him.
"Run on the pound"
On 14 November 2008, in an intervention described by the BBC's Nick Robinson as "pretty extraordinary", Osborne publicly warned that the more the government borrows, the less attractive sterling becomes to hold. He said: "We are in danger, if the government is not careful, of having a proper sterling collapse, a run on the pound." Labelling Gordon Brown's tactic a "scorched-earth policy" that a future Conservative government would have to clear up, Osborne continued: "His view is he probably won't win the next election. The Tories can clear this mess up after I've gone."
Expenses
In 2009 and 2012 Osborne was criticised for his expense claims, in particular for the claims for mortgage interest payments on his Cheshire properties. Osborne had funded the purchase of a country farmhouse and adjoining paddock in Cheshire before he became an MP in 2001 by way of a £455,000 extension of the mortgage on his London home. In 2003 he substituted a new £450,000 mortgage on the Cheshire property, which he then designated as his second home, or "flipped". As a result, he was able to claim up to £100,000 in mortgage interest on the house and paddock between 2003 and 2010, when the regulations changed. In 2012 it was revealed that the paddock had been legally separate from the farmhouse.
The Liberal Democrats said he had a "moral obligation" to pay an estimated £55,000 in capital gains tax to the public purse which he had saved through the designation or "flipping" of his London property as his main home. He had previously paid back £1,193 spent on chauffeur fares and overpayments on his mortgage after a complaint from a Labour activist, and it also emerged that he had claimed £47 for two copies of a DVD of his own speech on "value for taxpayers' money". The report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards found that although Osborne had breached the rules, the offence was "unintended and relatively minor". Osborne said he had received "flawed" advice and not benefited personally.
2010 general election campaign
During the 2010 general election campaign Osborne was considered to have been sidelined, owing to his perceived unpopularity and the perception by both Liberal Democrat and Labour strategists that he was a "weak link".
Chancellor of the Exchequer (2010–2016)
Osborne was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer on 11 May 2010, and was sworn in as a Privy Counsellor two days later. On 4 October 2010, in a speech at the Conservative conference in Birmingham, Osborne announced a cap on the overall amount of benefits a family can receive from the state, estimated to be around £500 a week from 2013. He also announced that he would end the universal entitlement to child benefit, and that from 2013 the entitlement would be removed from people paying the 40% and 50% income tax rates.
In February 2011 Osborne announced Project Merlin, whereby banks aimed to lend about £190 billion to businesses in 2011, curb bonuses and reveal some salary details of their top earners; meanwhile, the bank levy would increase by £800 million. Osborne's 2011 Autumn Statement was delivered to Parliament on 29 November 2011. It included a programme of supply-side economic reforms such as investments in infrastructure intended to support economic growth.
In 2012, Osborne cut the 50% income tax rate on top earners and figures from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs showed that the amount of additional-rate tax paid had increased under the new rate from £38 billion in 2012/13 to £46 billion in 2013/14, which Osborne said was caused by the new rate being more "competitive", however HMRC predictions in March 2012 predicted that around £6.25 billion in tax revenue would be delayed from 2012/13 to 2013/14 due to the expected lower tax rate, possibly explaining much of the increased revenue, and that the change would cost around £2.4 billion in 2012, however this cost would decrease and was expected to be nullified by 2016/17. In October 2012, Osborne proposed a new policy to boost the hiring of staff, under which companies would be able to give new appointees shares worth between £2,000 and £50,000, but the appointees would lose the right to claim unfair dismissal and time off for training.
In February 2013, the UK lost its AAA credit rating—which Osborne had indicated to be a priority when coming to power—for the first time since 1978. His March 2013 budget was made when the Office for Budget Responsibility had halved its forecast for that year's economic growth from 1.2% to 0.6%.
Osborne announced on 16 May that he would deliver a second Budget on 8 July, and promised action on tax avoidance by the rich by bringing in a "Google tax" designed to discourage large companies diverting profits out of the UK to avoid tax. The second Budget also increased funding for the National Health Service, more apprenticeships, efforts to increase productivity and cuts to the welfare budget. The July budget postponed the predicted arrival of a UK surplus from 2019 to 2020, and included an extra £18 billion more borrowing for 2016–20 than planned for the same period in March.
In Osborne's 2016 budget he introduced a sugar tax and raised the tax-free allowance for income tax to £11,500, as well as lifting the 40% income tax threshold to £45,000. According to The Guardian, Osborne was "the driving force" behind the BBC licence fee agreement which saw the BBC responsible for funding the £700 million welfare cost of free TV licences for the over-75s, meaning that it lost almost 20% of its income. The Guardian also noted Osborne's four meetings with News Corp representatives and two meetings with Rupert Murdoch before the deal was announced. Following the UK's vote to leave the European Union in June 2016, Osborne pledged to further lower corporation tax to "encourage businesses to continue investing in the UK". Osborne had already cut the corporation tax rate from 28% to 20%, with plans to lower it to 17% by 2020.
Political views
The Financial Times describes Osborne as "metropolitan and socially liberal. He is hawkish on foreign policy with links to Washington neo-conservatives and ideologically committed to cutting the state. A pragmatic Eurosceptic". There is evidence of this commitment to cutting the state in his party's manifesto, with Osborne and the Conservatives seeking to cut the deficit "faster and deeper" than any other main party as well as committing to various tax cuts such as inheritance tax and national insurance. According to an IFS report before the 2010 general election, the Conservatives needed to find more money from cuts beyond what they had outlined than any other major party, although the report was also critical of Labour and the Liberal Democrats. He has stated that the British economy must diversify away from London following the 2008 banking crisis, most notably in the form of the Northern Powerhouse policy proposals which aim to improve transport links and boost science and technology investment in the cities of the North in order to increase economic output.
After previously drawing parallels between Ed Miliband's economic views and those of Karl Marx in Das Kapital, in a 2017 interview with former Treasury colleague Lord O'Neill, Osborne said Marx's thesis in Das Kapital that capitalists would take an increasing share of wealth from the proceeds of economic production at the expense of workers could be argued as an accurate description of something that appeared to be occurring under the process of globalization, arguing that there was a need to "democratise capital" and ensure "that people have more capital in capitalism", such as larger pensions and more opportunities for savings and home and share ownership.
Brexit
At the time of the 2016 referendum Osborne was prominently in favour of the UK remaining in the EU.
Political relationships
Whilst David Cameron was prime minister, Osborne was widely viewed as a potential future leader of the Conservatives were Cameron to stand down and trigger a leadership contest, despite being seen as a relatively unpopular figure with the general public. Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi suggested that the closeness of his relationship with Cameron meant the two effectively shared power in the 2010–16 government, whilst commentators pointed to Osborne's hand in Cabinet reshuffles. He worked hard on rebuilding his image after the much-criticised 2012 budget.
Michael Deacon of The Daily Telegraph has described Osborne as "the prince of the parliamentary putdown" after, during one House of Commons debate, he managed to taunt both Ed Balls and Norman Baker in one sentence. Osborne denied rumours that he had referred to his colleague Iain Duncan Smith as "not clever enough", which were published in Matthew d'Ancona's book In It Together.
On 28 June 2016, Osborne ruled out standing as a candidate in that year's party leadership election, stating he was "not the person to provide the unity" his party needed.
Backbencher (2016–2017)
Osborne was sacked by Theresa May on 13 July 2016, following her appointment as Prime Minister. He returned to the backbenches and Philip Hammond replaced him as Chancellor. It was announced on 4 August 2016 that Osborne was to be made a Companion of Honour in the Resignation Honours list following David Cameron's resignation. Unlike Cameron, Osborne intended to remain an MP and stand for Parliament again in 2020, although proposed boundary changes could have led to the abolition of his Tatton constituency.
In September 2016, he launched the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, a body bringing together business leaders and politicians to promote regional devolution.
By October 2016, he was writing a book called Age of Unreason; it is a diatribe against "populist nationalism". Osborne's lucrative speaking engagements for a range of financial institutions since his dismissal as Chancellor helped make him the highest earning MP in 2016. In February 2017 he started a new role as a part-time advisor to BlackRock, the world's largest fund manager, for a salary of £650,000 for a one-day a week. The job was approved by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which stated that during Osborne's time as Chancellor "there were no specific policy decisions ... that would have affected BlackRock", and the Permanent Secretary at the Treasury had "no concerns" about Osborne taking up the role.
In 2017, Osborne became the first Kissinger Fellow at the McCain Institute for International Leadership. While the institute is based in John McCain's home state of Arizona, Osborne will remain in the UK.
Osborne announced he would be standing down as MP for Tatton in April 2017, a day after the 2017 general election was declared. He did not rule out returning to the Commons at some point. "It's still too early to be writing my memoirs", he wrote in a letter to his constituency party, adding he did not "want to spend the rest of my life just being an ex-chancellor. I want new challenges".
Career after Parliament
Evening Standard editor
Then still an MP, Osborne was announced on 17 March 2017 as the next editor of the Evening Standard, a position which he assumed on 2 May. Critics of his appointment questioned his lack of journalistic experience and his intention to remain MP for Tatton during his tenure with the newspaper, which other MPs said would constitute a conflict of interest and devalued the role of an MP. He was also accused of breaking the post-ministerial employment rules of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments by accepting the editorship without the committee's approval.
Private Eye subsequently documented in detail the relationship between Osborne and Standard owner Evgeny Lebedev, who appointed Osborne as editor. During Osborne's time as Chancellor of the Exchequer he regularly pledged Treasury money to Standard charitable campaigns, such as his offer in 2015 to match readers' donations by up to £1.5 million to the Standards Great Ormond Street Hospital appeal. In September 2015, the newspaper ranked Osborne in joint-first place on its annual 'Progress 1000' list of the most influential people in London. It was also highlighted that, as Chancellor, Osborne failed to tackle the advantageous tax status for so-called non-doms, which Lebedev was understood to benefit from, while Lebedev's paper strongly supported the Conservative Party in the 2015 general election and the Conservatives' candidate Zac Goldsmith in the 2016 London mayoral election.
After stepping down from politics, Osborne took on several engagements in addition to his work as editor. Among them was being named a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a dean's fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in September 2017. He specialised in research on international politics and the global economy. He continued to advise the asset manager BlackRock and also began advising his brother's firm 9Yards Capital. He joined 9Yards, a growth stage venture capital firm focused on financial technology and IT logistics investments, in 2018 as a partner and chairman.
In mid-2018, the Standard reported a loss of £10 million for the last year to the end of September. That year the paper dropped 'London' from its title to reflect greater national and international ambitions as part of a relaunch. For 2018, the Standard reported a £11.5 million loss amid speculation of "ad struggles".
In February 2020, questions were raised about Osborne's future at the Standard. On 12 June it was announced that he would step down as editor to move to the role of editor-in-chief. He was succeeded as editor by the former deputy editor of British Vogue and sister-in-law of David Cameron, Emily Sheffield, on 1 July 2020.
Comment on Theresa May
In a profile of Osborne published by Esquire magazine in September 2017, it was said that he had commented to several staff at the Evening Standard that he would not be satisfied until Theresa May was "chopped up in bags in my freezer". While Osborne had used macabre imagery about May in the past, he did not directly comment on the incident, although he was criticised for the alleged remark. An editorial in the Standard, published nearly a week later, was interpreted as Osborne's apology to May. It said "harsh words" had been said in connection with the Prime Minister's Brexit policy, but "intemperate language, even when said in jest" was inappropriate.
Attempts to return to politics
In 2018 Osborne was discussed as a potential candidate for Mayor of London in the election scheduled to be held in 2020. He said that as well as considering a bid, he would not rule out a return to Parliament. However, in an interview he said he would not stand for mayor as it would clash with his role as editor of the Evening Standard.
In July 2019, the Financial Times reported that Osborne was seeking backing to replace Christine Lagarde as managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Osborne needed to be nominated by directors on the IMF's executive board, who were elected by member countries, to enter the contest. Both European and British government sources said that Osborne, who backed Boris Johnson in the Conservative Party leadership election, would likely be the British nomination, due in part to Johnson's accession to Prime Minister. Lagarde's replacement was to be selected by the executive board, where the United States, Japan and China held the largest shares of the total vote. Several UK government figures, including Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid, endorsed Osborne for the role. Boris Johnson spoke to US President Donald Trump in a phone call to rally support for Osborne. On 6 September 2019, Osborne abandoned his IMF leadership attempt, and sources later confirmed that the chief executive of the World Bank, Kristalina Georgieva, had been put forward as the European Union's nominee.
Career diversification
In August 2020, Osborne's name was suggested as a possible candidate for chairman of the BBC as, according to the i newspaper, he had maintained "good relations" with Boris Johnson. In October The Telegraph reported that ministers had raised the salary cap to £160,000 a year for the role, and that they might have raised it further to £280,000 in order to tempt Osborne. Richard Sharp was later appointed.
Osborne left his roles at the Evening Standard and BlackRock in March 2021, and in April became an investment banker at Robey Warshaw.
In June 2021 it was announced that the trustees of the British Museum had unanimously elected Osborne as the museum's chairman. He joined the museum's board of trustees on 1 September 2021 and formally became chairman on 4 October.
On 25 September 2022, Osborne and Ed Balls became regular commentators on The Andrew Neil Show on Channel 4. Subsequently, on 14 September 2023, Osborne and Balls started hosting the economics-focused politics podcast Political Currency.
In popular culture
Osborne was portrayed by Sebastian Armesto in the 2015 Channel 4 television film Coalition.
Personal life
Osborne is heir apparent to his family's Irish baronetcy, of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon in County Waterford. In 2009, he had an estimated personal fortune of around £4 million, as the beneficiary of a trust fund that owns a 15% stake in Osborne & Little, the wallpaper-and-fabrics company co-founded by his father, Sir Peter Osborne.
Osborne married Frances Howell, author and elder daughter of Lord Howell of Guildford, a Conservative politician, on 4 April 1998. They have two children—Luke Benedict (born 15 June 2001) and Liberty Kate (born 27 June 2003)—who were both born in Westminster.
In July 2019, the couple announced that they were to divorce.
In May 2018, The Daily Telegraph reported that Osborne and his siblings had discovered "with delight" that their maternal grandmother Clarisse Loxton-Peacock (a Hungarian émigrée) was Jewish, and therefore that in Jewish law they are Jewish too.
In April 2021, Osborne announced his engagement to Thea Rogers after two years of dating. Rogers had been his special adviser and later Chief of Staff when he was Chancellor. The couple's first child, a son named Beau, was born on 15 July 2021. Rogers gave birth to their second child, a son named Arthur, on 30 December 2022. Before their wedding in July 2023, a poison pen email was circulated. The couple were married on 8 July 2023. A protestor, initially believed to be from the environmental group Just Stop Oil, threw orange confetti over them as they left the church following the wedding ceremony. Just Stop Oil denied responsibility for the incident.
Honours
13 May 2010: appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, giving the honorific style of "The Right Honourable" for life.
4 August 2016: appointed Companion of Honour in David Cameron's Resignation Honours
Awards
2015 British GQ Politician of the Year award
See also
Osborne baronets
United Kingdom government austerity programme
References
Further reading
External links
George Osborne at the Encyclopædia Britannica
George Osborne MP official Conservative Party profile
George Osborne for Tatton official constituency site
George Osborne collected news and commentary at The Telegraph
Profile: George Osborne BBC News, 5 April 2005
Economic thinking after the crunch, video speech, RSA Insights, 8 April 2009
The Real George Osborne, parody series featuring Rufus Jones as George Osborne, November–December 2011
Debrett's People of Today
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1971 births
20th-century British journalists
Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
British newspaper editors
Bullingdon Club members
Chancellors of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom
Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
English people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
First Secretaries of State of the United Kingdom
Living people
London Evening Standard people
Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
People educated at Norland Place School
People educated at St Paul's School, London
People from Paddington
Shadow Chancellors of the Exchequer
Trustees of the British Museum
UK MPs 2001–2005
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2015–2017 |
422837 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers%20Vimy | Vickers Vimy | The Vickers Vimy was a British heavy bomber aircraft developed and manufactured by Vickers Limited. Developed during the latter stages of the First World War to equip the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), the Vimy was designed by Rex Pierson, Vickers' chief designer.
Only a handful of Vickers Vimy aircraft had entered service by the time the Armistice of 11 November 1918 came into effect, so the type did not serve in active combat operations during the war, but the Vimy became the core of the Royal Air Force (RAF)'s heavy bomber force throughout the 1920s. The Vimy achieved success as both a military and a civil aircraft, the latter using the Vimy Commercial variant. A dedicated transport derivative of the Vimy, the Vickers Vernon, became the first troop-transport aircraft operated by the RAF.
During the interwar period the Vimy set several records for long-distance flights, the most celebrated and significant of these being the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, performed by John Alcock and Arthur Brown in June 1919. Other record-breaking flights were made from the United Kingdom to destinations such as South Africa and Australia. The Vimy continued to be operated until the 1930s in both military and civil capacities.
Design and development
Background
Throughout the First World War both the Allied Powers and the Central Powers made increasingly sophisticated use of new technologies in their attempts to break through the effective stalemate of trench warfare. One key advance made during the conflict was in the use of fixed-wing aircraft, which were at that time rapidly advancing in capability , for combat purposes. On 23 July 1917, in response to a bombing raid by German bombers on London, the Air Board, having determined that existing projects were not ambitious enough, decided to cancel all orders for experimental heavy bombers then underway. A week later, following protests from the Controller of the Technical Department, the Air Board placed an order for 100 Handley Page O/100 bombers, which was accompanied by orders for prototype heavy bombers being placed with both Handley Page and Vickers Limited.
On 16 August 1917 Vickers was issued with a contract for three prototype aircraft and Rex Pierson, chief designer of Vickers' aviation division, started designing a large twin-engine biplane bomber, to be powered by either a pair of RAF 4d or 200 hp (150 kW) Hispano Suiza engines. Pierson discussed the proposed aircraft with Major J. C. Buchanan of the Air Board to establish the rough configuration of the aircraft, which was expected to meet the requirement for a night bomber which could attack targets within the German Empire.
Design
The Vickers F.B.27 Vimy is an equal-span twin-engine four-bay biplane, with balanced ailerons on both upper and lower wings. The engine nacelles were positioned mid-gap and contained the fuel tanks. It has a biplane empennage with elevators on both upper and lower surfaces and twin rudders. The main undercarriage consists of two pairs of wheels, each pair carried on a pair of tubular steel V-struts. There is a tail-skid and an additional skid mounted below the nose of the fuselage to prevent nose-overs.
The aircraft was designed to accommodate a three-man crew and a payload of 12 bombs. In addition to the pilot's cockpit, which was positioned just ahead of the wings, there were two positions for gunners, one behind the wings and the other in the nose, each with a pair of Scarff ring-mounted Lewis guns; the rear cockpit mounting was commonly not fitted during the interwar period. Provision for a maximum of four spare drums of ammunition were present in the nose position, while up to six drums could be carried in the rear position.
The majority of the Vimy's payload of 250 lb bombs were stowed vertically inside the fuselage between the spars of the lower centre section; a typical load consisted of 12 bombs. In some variants further bombs could be stowed externally for a total of 18 bombs, if the particular engine used provided enough power. For anti-surface warfare in the maritime environment, the Vimy could also be armed with a pair of torpedoes. To improve bombing accuracy, the Vimy was equipped with the High Altitude Drift Mk.1a bombsight. Standard equipment also included two Michelin-built Mk.1 flare carriers.
The Vimy was powered by a range of different engines. Owing to engine supply difficulties, the prototype Vimys were tested with a number of different engine types, including Sunbeam Maoris, Salmson 9Zm water-cooled radials, and Fiat A.12bis engines, before production orders were placed for aircraft powered by the 230 hp (170 kW) BHP Puma, 400 hp (300 kW) Fiat, 400 hp (300 kW) Liberty L-12 and the 300 hp (270 kW) Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII engines, with a total of 776 ordered before the end of the First World War. Of these, only aircraft powered by the Eagle engine, known as the Vimy IV, were delivered to the RAF. Due to the number of engine types used there are multiple conflicting official reports on the production numbers of each sub-variant of the Vimy.
Design and production of the prototypes was extremely rapid; the detailed design phase of what had become internally designated as the Vickers F.B.27 and the manufacture of the three prototypes was completed within four months.
Prototypes
By the time the first prototype had been completed the RAF 4D was not sufficiently developed, so it was fitted with the alternative Hispano Suiza engine. On 30 November 1917 the first prototype, flown by Captain Gordon Bell, made its maiden flight from Royal Flying Corps Station Joyce Green, Kent. In January 1918 the first prototype was dispatched to RAF Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, for the official trials of the type. Reportedly, the F.B.27 quickly made a positive impression: it was able to take off with a greater payload than the Handley Page O/400 despite having about half the effective engine power. The engines proved to be unreliable during these trials, leading to the aircraft's return to Joyce Green on 12 April 1918.
The first prototype was extensively modified, receiving new Salmson water-cooled aero-engines in place of the Hispano Suizas; other changes included the adoption of an alternative exhaust stack configuration, a 3-degree dihedral on the mainplanes, and a modified tail unit. Following these modifications, the prototype was used for several years, surviving the war and being allocated a civil registration. In August 1919 the prototype was flown from Brooklands to Amsterdam in the Netherlands as part of Vicker's exhibit at the Eerste Luchtverkeer Tentoonstelling Amsterdam.
During early 1918 the second prototype was completed. Unlike the first, it had plain elevators and ailerons which had an inverse taper; the tops of the wings and tailplanes also differed. The defensive armament was increased, giving the rear gunner two separate guns; these changes would be standardised on production aircraft. The second prototype was powered by a pair of Sunbeam Maori engines, which were found to have an unreliable cooling system during initial testing at Joyce Green. On 26 April 1918 the aircraft was dispatched to RAF Martlesham Heath for official tests, but testing was interrupted by its loss in a crash following an engine failure.
During the first half of the 1918 the third prototype was also completed. It was powered by a pair of 400 hp (300 kW) Fiat A.12 engines, and had a redesigned nose section and nacelles which were similar to production aircraft. On 15 August 1918 the third prototype was sent to RAF Martlesham Heath for performance tests; testing was delayed by the need to replace a cracked propeller. On 11 September 1918 it was lost when its payload of bombs detonated owing to a hard landing, the result of a pilot-induced stall.
It was decided to construct a fourth prototype to test the Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII engine. On 11 October 1918 this was flown from Joyce Green to Martlesham Heath to conduct official trials. Aside from being powered by the Eagle engine, it was identical to the earlier prototypes except for having a greatly increased fuel capacity and reshaped and enlarged rudders. By the time the fourth prototype commenced flying trials, mass production of the Vimy had already begun.
Production
Since the performance of the first prototype was satisfactory it was decided to start production before the evaluation of either of the other prototypes. On 26 March 1918 the first production contract, for 150 aircraft, was issued; these were built at Vickers' works in Crayford in the Bexley. Production of the type by additional manufacturers was envisaged early on; in May 1918 follow-up contracts were issued to Clayton & Shuttleworth, Morgan & Co, and the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), in addition to a separate production line at Vickers' Weybridge complex. At one point over 1,000 aircraft had been ordered under wartime contracts. The type had received the official name of Vimy, after the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
By the end of 1918 a total of 13 aircraft had been completed by Vickers; 7 at Crayford and 6 at Weybridge. Production continued after the signing of the Armistice of 11 November 1918, which led to Vickers ultimately completing 112 aircraft under wartime contracts. The majority, if not all, of Vimys ordered from Morgan & Co were completed, while Westland Aircraft manufactured 25 of the 75 units that they were contracted for. The numbers produced by the RAE are obscured by changes in serial number allocation and the apparent adoption of a piecemeal approach to manufacturing, which came into effect shortly after the end of the war; in February 1920, the RAE completed their final Vimy.
Production aircraft used several different types of engines, leading to various mark numbers being applied to the Vimy to distinguish between the emerging subtypes. The use of different engines was often because of availability; relatively few engines from Rolls-Royce Limited were used in the Vimy during 1918 owing to low output levels from that manufacturer, while other manufacturers also struggled to keep up with engine demand that year. At one point, there was considerable enthusiasm for powering the Vimy with American Liberty L-12 engines, because of their plentiful supply at the time, but all orders for the Liberty-equipped Vimy were terminated in January 1919 and no examples were ever completed. The BHP Puma was also intended for use on the Vimy, but it was cancelled without any aircraft being fitted with the engine.
Use of the Vimy extended beyond its original use as a bomber. A model with greater internal space was developed, known as the Vimy Commercial within the civil market. It saw service with the RAF; known as the Vickers Vernon, it became the first dedicated troop transport to be operated by the service. The Vimy was also used as an air ambulance for transporting wounded troops to medical facilities, while some examples were configured to perform record-breaking long-distance flights. From 1923 to 1925 limited production batches of the Vimy were manufactured by Vickers. Between 1923 and 1931, at least another 43 early production aircraft were reconditioned to extend their service lives; at least one Vimy was reconditioned four times.
By October 1918 only three aircraft had been delivered to the Royal Air Force (RAF), one of which had been deployed to France for use by the Independent Air Force. It had been envisioned that the Vimy would be able to conduct long-range bombing missions into Germany, having the ability to reach Berlin from bases in France, but the Armistice of 11 November 1918 brought an end to the conflict before the Vimy could be used on any offensive operations. After the war, the RAF rapidly contracted in size, which slowed the introduction of the Vimy. The Vimy only reached full service status in July 1919 when it entered service with 58 Squadron in Egypt, replacing the older Handley Page 0/400.
Operational history
RAF service
On 12 June 1918, according to Flight International, the Air Board were to initially deploy the first production Vimy units as maritime patrol aircraft, equipped for anti-submarine warfare, and once this requirement had been satisfied, subsequent aircraft would be allocated to performing night bombing missions from bases in France. This had been due to a recently introduced policy under which the number of land-based aircraft allocated to anti-submarine patrols was to be vastly expanded, from 66 landplanes in November 1917 to a projected force of 726 landplanes, in which the newly available Vimy would be a key aircraft due to its long-range capabilities. During August 1918, the application of floats to the Vimy was studied, but it is not known if any aircraft were ever so fitted.
Throughout the 1920s, the Vimy formed the main heavy bomber force of the RAF; for some years, it was the only twin-engine bomber to be stationed at bases in Britain. On 1 April 1924, No. 9 Squadron and No. 58 Squadron, equipped with the Vimy, stood up, tripling the home-based heavy bomber force. On 1 July 1923, a newly formed Night Flying Flight, based at RAF Biggin Hill, equipped with the Vimy, was formed; during the general strike of 1926, this unit performed aerial deliveries of the British Gazette newspaper throughout the country. Between 1921 and 1926, the type formed the backbone of the airmail service between Cairo and Baghdad. The Vimy served as a front line bomber in the Middle East and in the United Kingdom from 1919 until 1925, by which point it had been replaced by the newer Vickers Virginia.
Despite the emergence of the Virginia, which numerous Vimy squadrons were soon re-equipped with, the Vimy continued to equip a Special Reserve bomber squadron, 502 Squadron, stationed at Aldergrove in Northern Ireland until 1929. The Vimy continued to be used in secondary roles, such as its use as a training aircraft; many were re-engined with Bristol Jupiter or Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar radial engines. The final Vimys, used as target aircraft for searchlight crews, remained in use until 1938.
Long-distance flights
The most significant of the Vimy's many pioneering flights was the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean, made by Alcock and Brown in June 1919. An example was specially constructed for the attempt, with additional fuel tanks to extend its range and a revised undercarriage. Only one such aircraft was built; it is preserved and displayed in the London Science Museum.
In 1919, the Australian government offered £10,000 for the first All-Australian crew to fly an aeroplane from England to Australia. Keith Macpherson Smith, Ross Macpherson Smith and mechanics Jim Bennett and Wally Shiers completed the journey from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome to Darwin via Singapore and Batavia on 10 December 1919. Their aircraft G-EAOU is preserved in a purpose-built, climate-controlled museum in the grounds of the airport in Smith's home town Adelaide, Australia; "The trip from Darwin to Sydney took almost twice as long as the flight to Australia." Vickers Vimy Reserve in Northgate, a suburb of Adelaide, is named in honour of the place the plane landed on its return to South Australia in 1920.
In 1920 Lieutenant Colonel Pierre van Ryneveld and Major Quintin Brand attempted the first England to South Africa flight. They left Brooklands on 4 February 1920 in Vimy G-UABA, named Silver Queen. They landed safely at Heliopolis, but as they continued the flight to Wadi Halfa they were forced to land due to engine overheating with still to go. A second Vimy was lent to the pair by the RAF at Heliopolis, and named Silver Queen II. This second aircraft reached Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia, where it was badly damaged when it failed to take off. Van Ryneveld and Brand then used a South African Air Force Airco DH.9 to continue the journey to Cape Town. The South African government awarded them £5,000 each.
Vimy Commercial
The Vimy Commercial was a civilian version with a larger-diameter fuselage (largely of spruce plywood), which was developed at and first flew from the Joyce Green airfield in Kent on 13 April 1919. Initially, it bore the interim civil registration K-107, later being re-registered as G-EAAV.
The prototype entered the 1920 race to Cape Town; it left Brooklands on 24 January 1920 but crashed at Tabora, Tanganyika on 27 February.
In 1919, the Chinese Government placed a large order for aircraft with Vickers, including 100 Vimy Commercials, which was cut to 40 Vimy Commercials when the final contract was signed in 1920. A Chinese order for 100 is particularly noteworthy; forty of the forty-three built were delivered to China, but most remained in their crates unused, and only seven were put into civilian use.
Five Napier Lion-powered air ambulance versions of the Vimy Commercial were built for the RAF as the Vimy Ambulance. Fifty-five more bomber-transport versions of the Vimy Commercial were built for the RAF as the Vickers Vernon.
Role in the Second Zhili–Fengtian War
After the First Zhili–Fengtian War, 20 aircraft were secretly converted into bombers under the order of the Zhili clique warlord Cao Kun, and later participated in the Second Zhili–Fengtian War.
During the war these bombers were initially highly successful due to the low-level bombing tactics used, with the air force chief-of-staff of the Zhili clique, General Zhao Buli (趙步壢) personally flying many of the missions. However, on 17 September, returning from a successful bombing mission outside Shanhai Pass, General Zhao's aircraft was hit by ground fire from the Fengtian clique in the region of Nine Gates (Jiumenkou, 九門口) and had to make a forced landing. Zhao made a successful escape back to his base, but the bombers subsequently flew at much higher altitude to avoid ground fire, which greatly reduced their bombing accuracy and effectiveness.
After numerous battles between Chinese warlords, all of the aircraft fell into the hands of the Fengtian clique, forming its First Heavy Bomber Group. These were in the process of being phased out at the time of the Mukden Incident and therefore were subsequently captured by the Japanese, who soon disposed of them.
Variants
F.B.27 Vimy Prototypes; four built, powered by two Hispano-Suiza 8 piston engines..
F.B.27A Vimy II Twin-engine heavy bomber aircraft for the RAF, powered by two Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII piston engines.
Vimy Ambulance Air ambulance version for the RAF.
Vimy Commercial Civilian transport version, powered by two Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII and later Rolls-Royce Eagle IX piston engines.
A.N.F. 'Express Les Mureaux' Vimy Commercial No.42 re-engined with 2x Lorraine 12Da V-12 engines.
Operators
Military operators
Royal Air Force (Vimy, Vimy Ambulance & Vernon).
No. 7 Squadron RAF
No. 9 Squadron RAF
No. 24 Squadron RAF
No. 45 Squadron RAF
No. 58 Squadron RAF
No. 70 Squadron RAF
No. 99 Squadron RAF
No. 100 Squadron RAF
No. 216 Squadron RAF
No. 500 Squadron RAF
No. 502 Squadron RAF
Civil operators
The Government of China (Vimy Commercial).
Grands Express Aériens (Vimy Commercial).
One aircraft.
The Government of Spain (Vimy).
Imperial Airways (Vimy Commercial).
Instone Air Line (Vimy Commercial).
Aircraft on display
Australia
Vimy IV G-EAOU at Adelaide Airport
United Kingdom
Vimy IV – Alcock & Brown's transatlantic aircraft at the Science Museum London.
Replicas
A replica transatlantic Vimy cockpit section was built by Vickers for the London Science Museum in the early 1920s, and three full-size replicas have also been built. The first was a taxiable replica commissioned by British Lion Films from Shawcraft Models Ltd of Iver Heath, Bucks; the planned film about Alcock & Brown's transatlantic flight was never made, but the model was completed and paid for. Its fate remains a mystery although it appeared on static display at the Battle of Britain air display at RAF Biggin Hill in 1955 and may have been subsequently stored dismantled in East London until at least the late 1980s. The engine nacelles appear in the mine scene from the film 'Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.', so it may not have been in good condition by then.
In 1969 an airworthy Vimy replica (registered G-AWAU) was built by the Vintage Aircraft Flying Association at Brooklands; this was first flown by D. G. 'Dizzy' Addicott and Peter Hoar. It was badly damaged by fire and was displayed until February 2014 at the RAF Museum, Hendon, London). It is currently stored dismantled at the RAF Museum storage facility in Stafford.
A second flyable Vimy replica, NX71MY, was built in 1994 by an Australian-American team led by Lang Kidby and Peter McMillan, and this aircraft successfully recreated the three great pioneering Vimy flights: England to Australia flown by Lang Kidby and Peter McMillan (in 1994), England to South Africa flown by Mark Rebholz and John LaNoue (1999) and in 2005, Alcock and Brown's 1919 Atlantic crossing was recreated by Steve Fossett and Mark Rebholz. The aircraft was donated to Brooklands Museum in 2006 and was kept airworthy in order to commemorate the 90th anniversaries of the Transatlantic and Australian flights, then retired in late 2009. Its final flight was made by John Dodd, Clive Edwards and Peter McMillan from Dunsfold to Brooklands on 15 November 2009 and four days later, in 18 hours, the aircraft was dismantled, transported the short distance to the museum and reassembled inside the main hangar by a dedicated volunteer team. Two days later a special Brooklands Vimy Exhibition was officially opened by Peter McMillan, and this unique aircraft is now on public display there.
Specifications
See also
References
Citations
Bibliography
Lynch, Brendan. Yesterday We Were in America - Alcock and Brown - First to fly the Atlantic non-stop. Yeovil, England: Haynes Publishing, 2009
Sims, Charles. "Talkback". Air Enthusiast. No. 13, August–November 1980. p. 79.
Winchester, Jim, ed. "Vickers Vimy." Biplanes, Triplanes and Seaplanes (Aviation Factfile). London: Grange Books plc, 2004. .
External links
The Vickers Vimy-Commercial at Hendon, 1919
Vickers Vimy preserved at Adelaide, South Australia
RAF Museum
Alcock and Brown's Vimy at the Science Museum London - archived article
Vickers Vimy online collection – State Library of NSW
Alcock and Brown's Vimy in the collection of the Science Museum London
National Geographic record of the 2005 re-enactment on the Atlantic flight
The Brooklands Vickers Vimy Replica Video List
1910s British bomber aircraft
Vimy
Military aircraft of World War I
Aircraft first flown in 1917
Biplanes |
422880 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arby%27s | Arby's | Arby's is an American fast food sandwich restaurant chain with more than 3,300 restaurants in the US. In 2012 it ranked third in systemwide sales in the US in the quick-service and fast-casual restaurant industries, behind Subway and Panera Bread. In October 2017, Food & Wine called Arby's "America's second largest sandwich chain (after Subway)".
Arby's is the flagship property of Inspire Brands, the renamed Arby's Restaurant Group, Inc. (ARG). ARG was renamed as the company took over ownership of Buffalo Wild Wings on February 5, 2018.
Roark Capital Group acquired 81.5% of Arby's Restaurant Group in July 2011 and is now a majority-owner of Inspire Brands. The Wendy's Company held a minority stake of 18.5% in Arby's after the acquisition by Roark Capital; that share was reduced to 12.3% upon the purchase of Buffalo Wild Wings, and was sold back to Inspire Brands on August 16, 2018, for $450 million, a 38 percent premium.
In addition to its classic Roast Beef and Beef 'n Cheddar sandwiches, Arby's products also include a deli-style Market Fresh line of sandwiches, Greek gyros, Curly Fries and Jamocha Shakes. Its headquarters are in Sandy Springs, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta which uses Atlanta mailing addresses.
In 2019, there were 3,472 restaurants. There are locations in six countries outside the United States: Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and South Korea.
History
Arby's was founded in Boardman, Ohio, on July 23, 1964, by brothers Forrest (1922–2008) and Leroy Raffel (1927–2023), owners of a restaurant equipment business who thought there was a market opportunity for a fast food franchise based on a dish other than hamburgers. They wanted to call their restaurants "Big Tex", but that name was already used by an Akron business. Instead, they chose the name "Arby's," based on R. B., the initials of Raffel Brothers; although often mistaken for Roast Beef.
The Raffel brothers opened the first new restaurant in Boardman, Ohio, just outside Youngstown, on July 23, 1964. They initially served only roast beef sandwiches, potato chips, and soft drinks. Hoping to attract a more upscale clientele, Arby's interior design was purposely more luxurious in appearance than the typical fast food sandwich stand of the day. Arby's offered their roast beef sandwiches for 69 cents at a time when hamburger stands were charging 15 cents for a hamburger. A year later, the first Arby's licensee opened a restaurant in Akron, Ohio. The famous Arby's "hat" was designed by the original sign makers, Peskin Sign Co.
During the 1970s, the expansion of Arby's took place at a rate of 50 stores per year. During this time it created several menu items, including the Beef 'n Cheddar, Jamocha Shakes, chicken sandwiches, Curly Fries, and two signature sauces: Arby's Sauce and Horsey Sauce. Baked potatoes were added to the menu in 1985. Curly Fries were initially introduced as Curly-Q Fries in 1988. It became the first restaurant in the fast food industry to offer a complete "lite" menu in 1991 with several sandwiches and salads under 300 calories and 94 percent fat-free.
The family-owned business tried converting into a public company in 1970 by offering the sale of stock, but the IPO never went through when the stock market subsequently fell. In 1976, the family sold the company to Royal Crown Cola Company for $18 million and Leroy Raffel remained as CEO until his retirement three years later.
In 1984, Victor Posner obtained Arby's via a hostile takeover of its then parent Royal Crown through his DWG Corporation. Nine years later, with a new owner of DWG Corporation and a new name, Triarc Companies, Inc., a former PepsiCo executive, Don Pierce, was brought in to "resurrect" Arby's. With $100 million additional funding, Pierce moved to a new "Roast Town" concept, similar in format to Boston Market, in 1996. The Roast Town concept received poor marks in market tests and was quickly discontinued. Pierce and his team left the company and it sold all of its 354 company-owned locations to RTM Restaurant Group, an existing Arby's franchise, for $71 million. Another marketing concept that was tried was a dual-brand venture that was started in 1995 with ZuZu's Handmade Mexican Grill. The marketing venture was a failure resulting in lawsuits being filed by each company against the other.
In 1992, Les Franchises P.R.A.G. Inc. opened the first Arby's franchise in the Canadian province of Quebec. It was also the 100th location to open in Canada and joins other locations that were then operating in the provinces of Ontario, Alberta, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan. The Quebec location also sold the uniquely French-Canadian dish called poutine.
In 2002, Arby's returned to operating restaurants by purchasing the second largest Arby's franchisee, Sybra Inc., with 293 locations out of bankruptcy outbidding RTM so as to prevent RTM from becoming too large. RTM was purchased by Arby's on July 25, 2005.
In November 2002, Access Now filed a lawsuit against RTM, then a franchise of Triarc, that some 800 of their stores did not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). The lawsuit had no liability damages except for lawyer fees. In August 2006, the court accepted the settlement between RTM and Access Now. The result was that every year, 100 of the RTM stores would be retrofitted to comply with the ADA. Accordingly, it was estimated that about $1.2 million would be spent to retrofit those stores each year.
In 2008, Triarc purchased Wendy's, and changed its name to Wendy's/Arby's Group, to reflect their core businesses. In January 2011, it was announced that Wendy's/Arby's Group were looking into selling the Arby's side of the business to focus on the Wendy's brand. It was officially announced the companies would split on January 21, 2011. In 2009, the Wendy's/Arby's Group signed a franchise deal with the Al Jammaz Group of Saudi Arabia to open dual-branded Wendy's/Arby's through the Middle East with the first location opening in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in May 2010. The Wendy's/Arby's Group also signed a similar franchise deal in June 2010 with Tab Gida Sanayi ve Ticaret to open dual-branded restaurants in Turkey. After the split, the former Wendy's/Arby's Group became The Wendy's Company.
In 2010, Arby's opened a restaurant at Ft. Bliss, their first location at an American military base under a deal that the Wendy's/Arby's Group had signed with the Army and Air Force Exchange Service to open restaurants at bases both in the United States and overseas. Only American military personnel and some of their guests can patronize the Arby's locations situated on the military bases and operated by the Post Exchange.
There were two different attempts to operate franchises in the United Kingdom. GSR Restaurant Group opened their first Arby's franchise location in London in 1992 followed by a second location the following year in Glasgow. These were also the first locations to open in Europe, but both were forced to close by 1994. In 2001, Barown Restaurants opened two Arby's franchise locations in Southampton, Hampshire, and Sutton, Surrey, but both were forced to close after operating for a few months.
On June 13, 2011, Wendy's/Arby's Group Inc. announced that it would sell the majority of its Arby's chain to Roark Capital Group while maintaining an 18.5% stake in the company. At the time of the sale, Arby's was experiencing an operating loss for the year of $35 million with 350 Arby's franchisees more than 60 days late in royalty payments and 74 low performing franchised units and 96 company-owned units forced to close. Despite its cash flow problem, Arby's also reported that it had six months of sales growth at established stores in the United States which it had attributed to its new turnaround plan that it had recently launched. The new owners turned the company around by closing more underperforming locations, changing the company's marketing strategy, and by introducing new products on a regular basis. After four years, Arby's was able to issue $300 million in dividends, which resulted in Wendy's receiving $54.9 million for its minority stake with the remainder paid to Roark.
In February 2017, Arby's reported that they were investigating a malware attack on its payment card system that had targeted thousands of customers' credit and debit cards. The malware was placed on point-of-sale systems inside Arby's corporate-owned restaurants, not its locations owned by franchisees, and was active between October 25, 2016, and January 19, 2017. Eight credit unions and banks from Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Montana have filed suit since early February against Arby's concerning the data breach.
In September 2017, Arby's returned to Kuwait for the first time in two decades by the opening of an Arby's franchise in Jabriya by Kharafi Global.
In November 2017, Arby's announced it had negotiated a purchase for the restaurant chain Buffalo Wild Wings for $2.4 billion in cash. As part of this acquisition, the parent was renamed from Arby's Restaurant Group, Inc. to Inspire Brands.
In October 2018, Arby's expanded into the North African country of Egypt by opening three restaurants in the capital city of Cairo with the help of local franchise partner Vantage Egypt Tourism and Entertainment.
In January 2022, Arby's announced launching in Saudi Arabia in an exclusive development agreement with Shahia Foods Limited Company, with the first restaurants expected to open in the capital city of Riyadh in late 2022. This agreement marks the brand's first-ever entry into Saudi Arabia and largest expansion into the Middle East to-date.
Products
In addition to roast beef, deli style sandwiches, called "Market Fresh Sandwiches," are sold at Arby's. The original lineup of sandwiches included Roast Beef and Swiss, Roast Turkey and Swiss, Roast Ham and Swiss, and Roast Chicken Caesar. With the exception of the Chicken Caesar, all Market Fresh Sandwiches came with the standard toppings of spicy brown honey mustard, mayonnaise, red onion rings, green leaf lettuce, tomato slices and sliced Swiss cheese. Additions to the Market Fresh lineup included Roast Turkey Ranch and Bacon and the Ultimate BLT. Market Fresh Five-Star Club, served on Harvest White Bread, was introduced in 2003 for a limited time.
The Ultimate BLT was released for a limited time in 2002 and later in 2012.
In 2003, the line was again expanded to include other styles of specialty sandwiches that were served on baguettes that included the Italian Beef 'n Provolone, French Dip 'n Swiss, Philly Beef Supreme, and Pot Roast sandwiches.
Corned beef and turkey Reuben sandwiches were added to the menu in 2005.
In early 2006, Arby's Restaurant Group signed a contract with Pepsi, making Pepsi the chain's exclusive soft drink provider. Franchises which had contracts with Coca-Cola switched to Pepsi-Cola when their contracts with Coca-Cola expired. The one exception was the Arby's located at Youngstown State University, because the university had its own separate contract with Coca-Cola for other university purposes, particularly the athletic department. This Arby's closed in mid-2012 when construction began to convert the location into a Wendy's. It was announced in August 2017, that Coca-Cola had won a contract to serve Coke products at all its restaurants, ending an almost 11-year association with Pepsi. The transition began in early 2018, and all Arby's locations were serving Coca-Cola beverages by June 19, 2018. Arby's promoted their announcement by breaking two Guinness World Records. The first record, "world's smallest advertisement", measured 38.3 microns by 19.2 microns on a sesame seed and was printed at Georgia Tech. The second record, "largest advertising poster", took up approximately 5 acres of land and was placed in Monowi, Nebraska, America's smallest town.
Toasted Subs, sandwiches served on a toasted ciabatta roll, were first introduced in September 2007. The initial line-up included the French Dip & Swiss Toasted Sub, Philly Beef Toasted Sub, Classic Italian Toasted Sub, and Turkey Bacon Club. Three months later, the Toasted Subs product line was extended to include the Meatball Toasted Sub and the Chicken Parmesan Toasted Sub.
In October 2013, Arby's introduced a Smokehouse Brisket sandwich.
In September 2014, Arby's introduced gyros to its menu for a limited time. Gyros were previously offered in 2006. They have since become a permanent menu fixture on the menu in April 2016.
On an almost annual basis, Arby's had offered some sort of a flatbread melt sandwich for a limited time. In 2007 and again in 2008, it was the Philly Cheesesteak and the Fajita Beef. The Beef Fajita returned with the new Chicken Fajita in 2009. After a six-year hiatus, Steak Fajita Flatbreads were offered for a limited time in 2015. The following year, Steak Fajita returned in 2016 with Chicken Fajita along with a choice between a hot and mild sauce.
After a nine-year hiatus, a pork-beef mixture meatball sandwich was reintroduced in July 2016.
In August 2015, Arby's introduced a series of five small sandwiches called Sliders starting at $1.29, with prices varied by location. These new menu items led to an increase in sales at many locations. This is not the first time Arby's tried to market miniature sandwiches. Two years earlier, Arby's tried to sell a similar product called the Mighty Minis that were sold in pairs. During the first month of national sales, the firm was able to sell 1 million or a ton of sliders. To encourage additional sales outside normal lunch and dinner meal hours, began to offer sliders and small size drinks and sides at the reduced price of $1 between the hours of 2 and 5 p.m. starting in October 2015. Due to Arby's great success in the increase of sales created by the introduction of this new product line, Nation's Restaurant News awarded Arby's its MenuMasters Award for 2016. The Turkey 'n Cheese was initially offered as a limited time menu item in December 2016 but was shown to be popular enough to be retained on the regular menu. A Pizza Slider was introduced as a limited time menu item in May 2017.
In late August 2016, Arby's introduced four chicken sandwiches that used a buttermilk-based breaded breast filet.
Arby's debuted a new sandwich known as Smokehouse Pork Belly Sandwich in October 2016.
In October 2016, word leaked through social media that Arby's was about to test a venison sandwich, which Arby's confirmed, selecting 17 stores in Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Wisconsin (all major deer hunting states) to offer it during a four-day test during those states' respective hunting seasons. Prior to the start of the promotion, USA Today published the locations of all 17 participating restaurants. Both due to curiosity and heavy demand from hunters, the sandwiches sold out in all markets on the first day of the test. Another USA Today article reported that the farm-raised venison was imported from New Zealand. In the following year, Arby's announced that the venison sandwich would return nationwide on October 21, 2017, also available in limited quantities.
In September 2017, Arby's introduced the Chicken Pepperoni Parm sandwich, their version of a chicken parmigiana sandwich which also contains pepperoni slices.
In October 2017, Arby's announced that three locations in Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming will offer an elk sandwich for a limited time. The farm-raised elk meat that was used to make the sandwiches was obtained from the same farm in New Zealand that provides the venison to Arby's since many states, such as Montana, prohibit the raising of game animals on commercial farms.
The following October, Arby's once again offered a featured wild game sandwich in 16 of its restaurants. This time, it would be a duck breast sandwich topped with a cherry sauce and crispy onions.
Some locations also serve breakfast, including at truck stop locations operated by Pilot Flying J and Love's Travel Stops and Country Stores that are typically operating 24 hours.
Advertising
Since 2014, Ving Rhames has been the narrator of Arby's commercials. The chain's current slogan is "Arby's, We Have The Meats!"
Global locations
Arby's currently has locations in Canada; Costa Rica; Saudi Arabia, Egypt; Mexico; South Korea; Turkey; and United States (in every state except Rhode Island and Vermont). There are also Arby's locations for service members in the Kadena Air Base and Camp Foster in Okinawa, Japan.
References
External links
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422886 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volos | Volos | Volos ( ) is a coastal port city in Thessaly situated midway on the Greek mainland, about north of Athens and south of Thessaloniki. It is the capital of the Magnesia regional unit of the Thessaly Region. Volos is also the only outlet to the sea from Thessaly, the country's largest agricultural region. With a population of 85,803 (2021), the city is an important industrial centre, and its port provides a bridge between Europe and Asia.
Volos is the newest of the Greek port cities, with a large proportion of modern buildings erected following catastrophic earthquakes in 1955. It includes the municipal units of Volos, Nea Ionia and Iolkos, as well as smaller suburban communities. The economy of the city is based on manufacturing, trade, services and tourism. Home to the University of Thessaly, the city also offers facilities for conferences, exhibitions and major sporting, cultural and scientific events. Volos participated in the 2004 Olympic Games, and the city has since played host to other athletic events, such as the European Athletic Championships. Volos hosted the 7th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics from 27 July to 5 August 2013.
Location
Built at the innermost point of the Pagasetic Gulf and at the foot of Mount Pilio (Pelion, the land of the Centaurs). The city spreads in the plain on the foothills of Mount Pelion, bordering the town of Agria to the east and Nea Anchialos to the southwest. Volos' municipality includes both towns, along with many nearby villages, including Makrinitsa and Portaria.
Volos is a major commercial port of mainland Greece in the Aegean sea (after Piraeus and Thessaloniki), with connection by ferry and hydrofoil to the nearby Sporades Islands, which include Skiathos, Skopelos and Alonissos. There are also connections to Lemnos, Lesbos, Chios and Skyros.
History
Antiquity
Modern Volos is built on the area of the ancient cities of Demetrias, Pagasae and Iolcos. Demetrias was established in 293 BC by Demetrius Poliorcetes, King of Macedon. Iolcus, or Iolkos, was known in mythology as the homeland of the hero Jason, who boarded the ship Argo accompanied by the Argonauts and sailed in quest of the Golden Fleece to Colchis. To the west of Volos lie the Neolithic settlements of Dimini, with a ruined acropolis, walls, and two beehive tombs dating to between 4000–1200 BC, and Sesklo, with the remains of the oldest acropolis in Greece (6000 BC). The mound of Kastro/Palaia in western Volos is the site of a Bronze Age settlement, including a Mycenaean palace complex where a couple of preserved Linear B tablets have been found.
Byzantine era
Iolcus is still attested in the early Byzantine period but was eclipsed for most of the Middle Ages by Demetrias. The Slavic tribe of the Belegezites settled in the area during the 7th century.
Volos first appears again in 1333, as one of the cities captured by the Byzantine general John Monomachos in Thessaly, under the name "Golos" (Γόλος). The name is of Slavic origin, from golo, golъ, "barren". Another theory derives the name from Slavic golosh, "seat of administration". Two alternative theories allude to a Greek origin through the words βολή (throw), as fishermen threw their nets into the sea from that area, and βώλος (piece of land) but the Greek scholar G. Hatzidakis considers them to be paretymologies at best. The modern form of the name is first attested in 1540.
The walls of medieval Golos follow the traces of the fortifications of ancient Iolcus, and many remnants of the ancient city have been found in the medieval citadel.
Along with the rest of Thessaly, Volos fell under Serbian rule in 1348, governed by Gregory Preljub. After Preljub's death Thessaly passed under the brief rule of Nikephoros II Orsini, followed by the Serbian rulers Simeon Uroš and John Uroš. After the latter's death in 1373, Thessaly returned under Byzantine rule for twenty years, until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Bayezid I.
Ottoman era
Ottoman rule was not yet firm. The first period of Ottoman control lasted from 1393–1397, followed by another , but it was not until 1423 that Volos was definitively incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman name of the city was . The Ottomans strengthened the town's fortifications against a possible Venetian attack, and installed not only a garrison, but also Muslim settlers from Anatolia. The local Christian population in turn moved to the slopes of Pelion. From this time on, Volos became the chief settlement on the Pagasetic Gulf.
The city began to spread outside its walls in the late 16th/early 17th centuries, coinciding with a growth in commerce, helped by the city's famed twice-weekly local fair and the first works at the waterfront harbour. The fortress was captured by the Venetians under Francesco Morosini in 1665, during the Cretan War, but recovered and refortified by the Ottomans.
In May 1821, at the beginning of the Greek Revolution, the Greek rebels of Mount Pelion tried to capture the fortress but failed. On 8 April 1827, the Greek fleet, under the command of the British philhellene Frank Abney Hastings, captured five Ottoman ships in the city's harbour and forced the local garrison to evacuate the fortress. The provisional government of Greece claimed Volos as part of Greek national territory, but the Treaty of Constantinople (1832), which established a Greek independent state, set its northern boundary along a line running south from Arta to Volos. Volos was incorporated into the Greek Kingdom in November 1881 with the rest of Thessaly.
Modern Volos
After its incorporation into the Greek Kingdom, the town had a population of only 4,900, but grew rapidly in the next four decades as merchants, businessmen, craftsmen and sailors gravitated toward it from the surrounding area. In the 1920s a large influx of refugees to the settlement took place, especially from Ionia, but also from Pontus, Cappadocia and Eastern Thrace. In 1882, Andreas Syngros established the Privileged Bank of Epirus and Thessaly, which the National Bank of Greece acquired in 1899 after its founder's death. Volos was occupied by Ottomans on 8 May 1897, during the Greco Turkish War.
The city had a vibrant Jewish community in the early 20th century: from 500 in 1896, it rose to 2,000 in 1930, before falling drastically to 882 members in 1940, because of emigration to the great cities of Thessaloniki and Athens or abroad. During the Axis occupation of Greece, the prompt actions of the local chief rabbi, Moshe Pessach, and the Greek authorities saved about 700 of the local Jewish community from deportation to the Nazi death camps.
After an aerial attack by Italian troops in November 1940 and another by the Germans in 1941, many of the city's inhabitants took refuge in the villages of Pelion. Abandoning Volos after Italy's capitulation in September 1943, the Italians left storerooms full of food, arms and ammunition. Large quantities of this material was transported with the Pelion railway to the mountain village Milies and under the supervision of ELAS loaded onto mules and taken to secure hideaways. When the Germans set off a column to Milies an officer and a soldier were killed by resistance fighters. In reprisal nearly the whole village was burnt down by German occupation troops on October 4, 1943. According to the official report of the municipality the Germans executed 25 men, and three inhabitants died in their houses from the flames.
Volos is also well known for its assortment of mezedes and a clear alcoholic beverage known as tsipouro.
A street in a sister city, Rostov-on-Don, bears the name Улица Греческого Города Волос (Street of the Greek City of Volos), weaving through a mix of early 20th-century buildings with characteristic inner yards, tiered balconies and open iron stairs that lend the old Rostov its characteristic Mediterranean look.
In September 2023 the city of Volos was flooded by massive rain.
Administration
The municipality Volos was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following nine former municipalities, that became municipal units:
Agria
Aisonia
Artemida
Iolcos
Makrinitsa
Nea Anchialos
Nea Ionia
Portaria
Volos
The municipality has an area of 385.614 km2, the municipal unit 108.6 km2.
Province
The province of Volos () was one of the provinces of the Magnesia Prefecture. Its territory corresponded with that of the current municipalities Volos, Rigas Feraios, South Pelion and Zagora-Mouresi. It was abolished in 2006.
Geography
Volos is the administrative centre of the Magnesia regional unit. Many of the city domains are separated through natural barricades, such as rivers.
Three main rivers/mountain torrents all rise from mount Pelion (with its peak at ), crossing the city to create a unique urban geography, before ending in the Pagasetic Gulf flowing west. The Anavros river, famous for Jason's pass, divides the Nea Demetriada district from the rest of the urban area. Krafsidonas is the major river passing through the city and constitutes the natural lung of the urbanized area of Volos, as well as the boundary between the major municipalities of the metropolitan city, the municipalities of Volos and Nea Ionia. Xirias (Ξηριάς), is the largest torrent in the metropolitan urban area of Volos and passes through the Nea Ionia municipal area.
Climate
Volos experiences a Csa hot-summer Mediterranean climate, with neither particularly high nor extremely low temperatures throughout the year. Its climate is one of fairly low humidity, favorable for all kinds of activities. Measurable rainfall occurs on average around 89 days per year. Thunderstorms occur sparsely throughout the year, more often during the warmer months. Snow occurs more or less every year on a few occasions, though it usually doesn't cause disruption to daily life. The Pelion mountain, with its own microclimate, affects the city's weather, acting as a rain shadow to the north-easterly winds thus limiting the amount of precipitation the city receives in comparison to the eastern side of the mountain. Average temperature values, like in most regions, have slightly increased in more recent periods.
Architecture
Two of the most known churches of Volos, St Nicholas and Sts Constantine and Helen on the promenade, were designed by architect Aristotelis Zachos. Volos was once also characterised by a number of old mansions, the majority of which were destroyed after the earthquakes in 1955. Nowadays, only some of them have been saved, restored and have a new, mainly public, use.
The development of the new city coincided with the flourishing of neoclassicism. Public buildings conformed to this style and private buildings belonging to prosperous merchants were particularly sophisticated. Typical examples include:
The 3-story Hotel de France, with its impressive decorative murals (1894, Iasonos and K. Kartali Street)
Old Tobacco Factory of Matsaggos (1890)
Yellow Tobacco Warehouse (1926)
The National Bank, formerly the Epirothessalian Bank (1895)
The Athens Bank (1903, today the library of University of Thessaly)
The Achillopouleion Hospital (1901)
The Archaeological Museum of Volos, Athanasakeio (1909)
The Agricultural Bank (1909, formerly the Kosmadopoulos Bank)
The Cine-theater Achilleion (1925)
The Aegli Hotel, (1927), designed by Kassiopoulos
The Building of the Air-force High officials Club near Agios Konstantinos Park, believed to have been designed by Le Corbusier
The Bank of Greece building (1935)
Municipal conservatory of Volos
The old factory of Tsalapatas
Tsikrikis Mansion
Kitsos Makris' house (today Kitsos Makris Folklore Centre)
Volos City Hall
The Railway Station of Volos, designed by Evaristo De Chirico
The Averofeian Courthouse
The family houses of Kartalis, Glavanis, Kastemis, Saratsis
The Sarafopoulos Mansion (1927), today the Volos Club
The well-preserved Regas house and its singular decorative murals, today the Lyceum of Greek women
Districts
Education
The city of Volos consists of the administrative and academic centre of University of Thessaly, which was founded in 1984, and is the most important centre of education in central Greece. The faculties of Engineering, Humanities and Social Sciences and Agricultural Sciences, with their twelve departments, are based in Volos, emphasising the academic, economic and cultural development of the city. The faculties are located in different areas of the city ; “Pedion Areos” Campus is used by the Departments of the School of Engineering, while the School of Humanities and Social Sciences is located in the centre of Volos. The School of Agricultural Sciences is based in a renovated building in Fytoko. In addition to Greek students, the city and the University attract many foreign students via Erasmus and other programmes.
In addition, in the city, there are 56 kindergartens, 51 primary schools, 18 junior high schools and 13 senior high schools.
Economy
Volos is one of the most industrialized provincial cities of Greece, because of its strategic location between the largest population centers of the country (Athens – Thessaloníki) and its port. Industry is intensely specialized in steel production and manufacturing. Three major steel producers (METKA, SIDENOR and Hellenic Steel Industry (Ελληνική Χαλυβουργία)) have production facilities in the industrial areas of Volos and nearby Almyros.
AGET Heracles, a member of the Lafarge group, operates one of the largest cement facilities in the world (with capacity exceeding 7,000,000 tn) with its own private port, next to the city. Volos is also active in the research sector, hosting the Institute of Bio-Economy and Agri-Technology (iBO), one of the five Institutes of the Center for Research and Technology – Hellas (CERTH).
Port
The port lies upon the ancient Thessalian settlement of Iolkos. According to Greek mythology, this was where the hero Jason built his trireme, Argo, and along with his oarsmen set course for Colchis, bringing back and marrying priestess Medea.
The new port was founded in 1893 and was the most significant element in the industrial development of the area. Today, Volos has the third-largest cargo port in Greece (after Piraeus and Thessaloniki), carrying agricultural and industrial products. In the past, it was home to a maritime link with Tartus, Syria.
Ferries and flying dolphins operate daily, connecting Volos to the Magnesia islands of the Sporades, (Skiathos, Skopelos, Alonissos). In addition, many cruise ships use the port of Volos as a destination. During the summers of 2015 and 2016, more than 100 cruises arrived in Volos, carrying more than 100,000 visitors.
International relations
The city of Volos has always had a major role in the financial, economic, commercial and administrative matters of the region of Thessaly and Central Greece, due to the strategic position of the city's port, unique between Athens and Thessaloniki.
International consulates
Several European countries have established consulates in Volos including:
Belgium
Denmark
France
Germany
Italy
Netherlands
Twin towns — sister cities
Volos is twinned with:
Antofagasta, Chile
Batumi, Georgia
Le Mans, France
Pleven, Bulgaria
Rostov-on-Don, Russia
Smederevo, Serbia
Sochi, Russia
Culture
The wider region of Volos is a place rich with history, finding the first signals of culture in the Neolithic period. In the villages of Sesklo and Dimini, the first traces of Neolithic culture in Europe have been discovered.
Moreover, close by Volos, there are the ancient Dimitrias, a town built by Dimitrios Poliorkitis in 294-2 AC. Today, the ancient theatre of Dimitrias remains preserved. Also present are the archaeological areas of Goritsa hill, archaeological findings dating from the early Christian period in Nea Anchialos, and the wall of Volos's old castle, which is open to visitors.
Volos consists of a city with diverse Greek trades, as its industrial development encouraged many people to move to the city. The city's industrial and financial evolution also gradually resulted in cultural and social evolution, too; in 1894, Volos acquired its Municipal Theater and later its Gymnastics Club. In 1908, Volos became home to the first Labour Union in Greece.
After 1922, following the Asia Minor Catastrophe, Volos received a large number of people from the destroyed regions. This coexistence with the locals deeply influenced the culture of the city, leaving a mark still visible in the food, music, sports, entertainment and social life of the city today.
In modern times, there are plentiful museums and galleries to be visited throughout the city, but also in the wider region. Above all, Volos forms one of the most attractive and tourist-friendly cities in Greece because of its physical setting, combining the Pagasetic Gulf with Mount Pelion.
Volos was a candidate city for the European Capital of Culture, 2021.
Museums and galleries
Archaeological Museum of Volos
Volos Natural History Museum
Modern History Museum of Volos City
Giorgio de Chirico Art Centre
Thessaly Railway Museum, Railway Station of Volos
The Rooftile and Brickworks Museum N. & S. Tsalapatas, National Museum of Industrial History
Entomological Museum of Volos
Theofilos Museum, Anakasia (works of the artist Theofilos Hatzimikhail)
Cuisine
One of the main characteristics and most widely known specialities of Volos is its traditional drink, tsipouro, and the seafood that is served accompanying the drink.
Local specialities include:
Boubari
Spetzofai
Melachrini (dessert)
Spoon sweets
Tsipouro (drink)
Sports
Volos, taking advantage of its physical setting by the sea, has a significant presence in Greek sporting history in the areas of rowing and sailing. The city also has two covered and one open sporting swimming pools, with a long history in swimming and water polo. Additionally, Volos has clubs and facilities in several sports, including football, basketball, volleyball, tennis and horseriding. The most popular clubs, with significant contributions to the sporting and cultural history of the city and significant successes in football, are Olympiakos Volou and Niki Volou. The main clubs of Volos are shown below :
With its sporting traditions, Volos was one of the five cities that played host to the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Since 2004, Volos's facilities have hosted significant sports events, such as the 27th European Championship of Artistic Gymnastics in 2006, the FIBA European Youth Championship (2015), when Greece won the gold medal, and the Finals of Greek Football Cup, in 2007 and 2017.
Transport
All land transport reaches Volos, while the International Airport of Central Greece in Nea Anchialos links the city to international destinations, and the Port of Volos provides links to the islands, mostly the Sporades, as well as to some destinations in Pilio.
Motorways
Volos is linked through Greece's E75 Highway Axis (most often known as PATHE) with Northern and Southern Greece. Beyond this, the Axis E65 will be the gateway to Western Greece and the port of Igoumenitsa, through the plains of inner Thessaly, when this part of the E65 link is completed.
Airport
The city of Volos, along with the rest of Central Greece, is linked to the rest of Greece and Europe by the Nea Anchialos National Airport. The airport has the second longest commercial runway in Greece after Eleftherios Venizelos.
Volos is the first city in Europe to feature Seaplane Services through Argo Airways, which is based in Volos. The seaplanes connect Volos with Skiathos, Skopelos, Allonisos, Athens and Thessaloniki.
Railway
Today, the city is served by direct lines to the rest of Greece, and the railway complex houses facilities for train maintenance. Volos is directly linked with Athens once per day, with Thessaloniki twice per day, and with Larissa 15 times a day. In the past, Volos was served by railway lines of three different gauges, the metre gauge line of Thessaly Railways to Kalampaka, the standard gauge line to Larissa and the gauge line to Pelion. Remnants of triple gauge lines still exist near the station. Currently, the Pelion railway line operates for tourist reasons every Saturday, Sunday and public holiday from mid-April to the end of October. The train runs every day during July and August.
Notable people
Mythology
Iason, mythological hero
Peleus, mythological hero
Chiron, centaur
Modern
Giorgio de Chirico, painter (1888–1978)
Vangelis, composer (1943–2022)
John Argyris, pioneer in engineering, Professor of Imperial College London and University of Stuttgart (1913–2004)
Fotis Kouvelis, politician, leader of the Democratic Left
Dimitrios Trichopoulos, medical doctor, Professor of Harvard School of Public Health
Georgios Kartalis, politician (1908–1957)
Yorgos Foudoulis, musician and composer (1964)
Moshe Pesach, rabbi of Volos and Chief Rabbi of Greece
Lavrentis Mahairitsas, musician and songwriter (1956-2019)
Artemis Alexiadou, linguist (1969)
Yorgo Moutsiaras, orchestral conductor (1976)
Apostolia Zoi, singer (1980)
Andromache (Mary) Mavroyeni Papanicolaou, (1890-1982), wife of George N. Papanicolaou, MD, PhD and first cytotechnologist
Athletes
Vasileios Polymeros, rower, olympic medalist (1976)
Nikolaos Skiathitis, rower, olympic medalist (1981)
Olga Vasdeki, triple jumper (1973)
Spyridon Vasdekis, long jumper (1970)
Paraskevi Tsiamita, triple, long jumper (1972)
Nikos Boudouris, basketball player (1971)
Panagiotis Liadelis, basketball player (1974)
Athanasios Kostoulas, football player (1976)
Efthalia Koutroumanidou, beach volleyball player (1982)
Evanthia Makrygianni, synchronized swimmer (1986)
Christos Volikakis, track cyclist (1988)
Adam Tzanetopoulos, football player (1995)
See also
Thessaly
Magnesia
Pelion
Sporades
University of Thessaly
Footnotes
References
External links
Volos The Official website of the Greek National Tourism Organisation
Homepage of the Municipality of Nea Ionia
Port of Volos
Greek prefectural capitals
Municipalities of Thessaly
Mediterranean port cities and towns in Greece
Provinces of Greece
Port cities of the Aegean Sea
Populated places in Magnesia (regional unit) |
422892 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigadier%20Lethbridge-Stewart | Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart | Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, generally referred to simply as the Brigadier, is a fictional character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, created by writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln and played by Nicholas Courtney. He is one of the founders of UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, later Unified Intelligence Taskforce), an international organisation that defends Earth from alien threats, and serves as commander of the British contingent. Presented at first as reluctant to accept the continuing aid of the Doctor, over time the Brigadier became one of the Doctor's greatest friends and his principal ally in defending Earth.
As one of the series' most prominent recurring characters over its history, the Brigadier appeared in 23 stories during the original run of Doctor Who, first appearing in the 1968 serial The Web of Fear opposite the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton). The character made frequent appearances on the series following the introduction of the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) in 1970's Spearhead from Space. His final appearance in the program was in 1989's Battlefield opposite the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy). Nearly 20 years later, Courtney reprised the role in the DVD Special Feature called “Liberty Hall” in 2009 written by Karen Davies and directed by Brendan Sheppard in which the Brigadier was interviewed by a Times journalist. Then he finally appeared in the spin-off programme The Sarah Jane Adventures in 2008, his last appearance prior to Courtney's death in 2011. That year, Doctor Who later paid tribute to Courtney by announcing the Brigadier had died with a line of dialogue in "The Wedding of River Song". Later still, a Cyberman avatar of the Brigadier also appears, and achieves some closure with the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi), in "Death in Heaven" (2014).
The 2012 episode "The Power of Three" introduced the Brigadier's daughter, new UNIT chief Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave). The character was originally created in the unlicensed video spin-off Downtime in 1995, in which the Brigadier also appeared. Kate becomes a recurring character making appearances alongside the Eleventh (Matt Smith), Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors (Jodie Whittaker).
Character history
Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart's ancestry goes back to Scotland, according to dialogue in Terror of the Zygons (1975). He first encounters the Second Doctor in The Web of Fear (1968), when Lethbridge-Stewart is a colonel in the Scots Guards commanding a British Army detachment sent to investigate the Yeti in the London Underground. By his next appearance in The Invasion (1968), he had been promoted to Brigadier and was working with UNIT. When the Doctor was forcibly regenerated and exiled to Earth, Lethbridge-Stewart gave him a position as UNIT's scientific advisor after he helped defeat the Auton invasion. Other military members of UNIT included Captain Mike Yates, Sergeant Benton and Royal Navy Lieutenant Harry Sullivan.
Most of the stories about the Third Doctor were set on Earth and feature UNIT and the Brigadier heavily. While not as ubiquitous in following years, he appeared alongside every subsequent Doctor in the original television series run, excluding the Sixth Doctor, with whom he appeared only in the 30th anniversary special, Dimensions in Time in 1993. Although Lethbridge-Stewart first met the Doctor in his second incarnation, he also met and worked with the First Doctor in the opening serial of the 10th anniversary season, The Three Doctors and again in the 20th-anniversary special, The Five Doctors. He eventually retired from the military to teach mathematics at an English public school in 1976, as seen in Mawdryn Undead (1983). The Brigadier and the Sixth Doctor, as well as later incarnations of the Doctor, have been paired in numerous spin-off productions (see Other appearances).
As one of the most popular recurring supporting characters in the television series, the Brigadier is often listed among the Doctor's companions. He is listed as such by the BBC and is included in a book by John Nathan-Turner's (a former producer of Doctor Who) discussing all the Doctor's companions.
Lethbridge-Stewart's last appearance in a Doctor Who television episode was in 1989, in the Seventh Doctor serial Battlefield. Called out of retirement to deal with an other-dimensional invasion of armoured knights led by Morgaine, he found himself once again at the Doctor's side. Lethbridge-Stewart served as his world's champion as he faced down and killed the demonic Destroyer of Worlds armed only with his service revolver and a load of silver-tipped bullets. (Battlefield was stated to be a few years into Ace's future but not a specific date. The Virgin New Adventures books place it in 1997.)
Little was shown of Lethbridge-Stewart's life outside UNIT in the television series. Planet of the Spiders referred to a relationship with a woman called Doris. By Battlefield, he was married to her (played by Angela Douglas). It was Courtney's own belief that the Brigadier had been in a previous marriage to a woman named Fiona, and that he and Doris were having an affair; his first marriage ended due to his work.
Although Lethbridge-Stewart never appeared in the revived series, the character is still alive during the Tenth Doctor's tenure. In the spin-off programme The Sarah Jane Adventures story Revenge of the Slitheen, Sarah Jane Smith says to "give [her] love to the Brig". In the Tenth Doctor episode "The Poison Sky", the Doctor mentions that he could use the help of "the Brigadier". He is then told that "Sir Alistair" is "stranded in Peru", indicating that the Brigadier has been knighted by this time. The first film footage from the classic era to appear in the revived era was his photograph displayed in the slow pan across Sarah Jane Smith's attic in the opening scene of The Sarah Jane Adventures’ première, Invasion of the Bane.
In 2008, Courtney again reprised the role in a The Sarah Jane Adventures story, Enemy of the Bane, and confirmed his knighthood repeatedly: Major Kilburne and Sarah Jane each address him as "Sir Alistair" and he later introduces himself fully as "Brigadier Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart" to Mrs. Wormwood. This episode refers back to the Peru mission as there is mention of him being de-briefed about it. Sarah Jane asks Lethbridge-Stewart to assist her in accessing UNIT's "Black Archive", a top secret alien artefact facility first alluded to by Douglas Cavendish to Sir Alistair's daughter in Dæmos Rising. Sarah Jane prefers to avoid seeking official clearance, to avoid awkward questions about Luke, her artificially-grown son. In his old age, the Brigadier has developed a dislike for the new way UNIT works and often refers to events that happened in "his day". He walks with a walking stick now, but is seen driving a Bentley T-series to UNIT's "Black Archive". His wife (presumably Doris) is mentioned in this episode. The Brigadier assists Sarah Jane and Rani in escaping UNIT and later confronts a Bane disguised as a UNIT officer, shooting him dead with a gun hidden within his cane.
In The Sarah Jane Adventures story The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, Clyde Langer tells Peter Dalton that the Brigadier cannot make it to the wedding because he is back in Peru. It had been intended by the production team that Lethbridge-Stewart would indeed appear in the story and meet the Tenth Doctor, but Courtney was recovering from a stroke and unable to take part. He is reported to be in Peru for a third time in Death of the Doctor (2010). Clyde describes him as being Sarah Jane's oldest friend; Sarah Jane met both the Doctor and Sir Alistair in the first episode of the Third Doctor serial, The Time Warrior (1974).
In 2009, Courtney reprised the role for a final time in the short film Liberty Hall, an extra for Mawdryn Undeads DVD release. The film is a seven-minute mockumentary where a fictional journalist interviews the Brigadier about his life. The Brigadier discusses his marriages with Fiona and Doris, and mentions his daughter Kate and grandson Gordon (referencing Downtime). He states that his most recent encounter with the Doctor took place in 2000, when he was on unofficial UNIT business in Malebolgia in the United States (referencing the Eighth Doctor audio drama Minuet in Hell). He concludes, "So, now I've hung up my uniform for good... unless I hear that a blue police box has been found somewhere, and then, don't you worry, I'll be ready!"
Sometime later, the Brigadier becomes ill and is moved into a nursing home. In 2011's "The Wedding of River Song", the Eleventh Doctor rings the nursing home to have the Brigadier made ready for a trip; a nurse regretfully informs him that the Brigadier died peacefully "a few months ago" and had spoken well of him often, insisting a glass always be kept ready for him in case he turned up. The Doctor is visibly shattered by the news, which forces him to realise that he can't avoid his predestined death.
In the 2014 episode "Death in Heaven", Missy (the regenerated female Master) resurrects the Earth's dead as flight-capable Cybermen. The Brigadier's daughter Kate is apparently killed falling from a plane during a Cybermen attack. Overcoming his programming, the converted Danny Pink commands the Cybermen to sacrifice themselves to thwart Missy's plan. The Doctor prepares to execute Missy, but is preempted by a lone surviving Cyberman, who seemingly vaporizes her with a forearm-mounted ray-gun. Finding that the Cyberman has rescued Kate, the Doctor realizes it is the converted Brigadier, saying "Of course! Earth's darkest hour, and mine. Where else would you be?" Overcome with emotion, the Doctor salutes him – something Kate said her father had always wanted – and the Brigadier fires his leg jets and flies away. What happens to him afterward is left unknown.
In the 2017 Christmas special "Twice Upon a Time", the First and Twelfth Doctors unwittingly intervene when Testimony, an organization in the far future that collect memories from those about to die, retrieve a seemingly-innocuous captain in the First World War from the moment before his death, the temporal anomaly of the two Doctors resisting their imminent regenerations disrupting Testimony's efforts to return the captain to his scheduled death. The Doctors are able to bend the rules and return the captain to a point a couple of hours after he was taken out of time, in time for his life to be saved by the Christmas truce. Before he returns to time, the captain reveals that his name is Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart, suggesting that he is a relative of the Brigadier. (It is confirmed that the character is one of the Brigadier's grandfathers.)
List of television appearances
Other appearances
The Brigadier and the Sixth Doctor were paired in the two-part charity special Dimensions in Time and the Big Finish audio play, The Spectre of Lanyon Moor. The Sixth Doctor also meets the Brigadier in the novel Business Unusual, also purporting to be the first meeting of the two characters, subsequently working together in The Shadow in the Glass to track down the newly discovered Fourth Reich; in the short story "Brief Encounter: A Wee Deoch an..?", written by Sixth Doctor actor Colin Baker and published in Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special, 1991, they cross paths but neither realises it. The Brigadier has also appeared with the Eighth Doctor in the novel The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks (set after the events of the TV Movie and during moments of The Doctors' past lives) in audio plays and the novels The Dying Days and The Shadows of Avalon. The Tenth Doctor met the Brigadier in the Doctor Who Magazine comic The Warkeeper's Crown.
The Brigadier and his family have made several appearances in the spin-off media. The spin-off UNIT videos Downtime and Dæmos Rising feature Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, the Brigadier's daughter from his marriage to his first wife, Fiona (first named in the Missing Adventure The Scales of Injustice by Gary Russell). Also appearing was Kate's young son, Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart. Kate also played her UNIT role in the fiftieth anniversary episode, "The Day of the Doctor" (2013).
The novels also gave Lethbridge-Stewart another offspring. While on duty in Sierra Leone as a young lieutenant, Lethbridge-Stewart met and was intimate with a local girl named Mariatu, the daughter of a village chief, and unknown to Lethbridge-Stewart, she had a son. This was first hinted at in Ben Aaronovitch's novelisation of his 1988 serial Remembrance of the Daleks, which featured quotes from a fictional history of UNIT (The Zen Military) written by a Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart (Mariatu's granddaughter) in 2006. In the 1992 New Adventures novel Transit (also by Aaronovitch, and set in the 22nd Century), the Seventh Doctor meets the adopted daughter of General Yembe Lethbridge-Stewart, one of Mariatu's descendants. This daughter, also named Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart, went on to become a recurring character in the New Adventures.
The novels have also fleshed out the Brigadier's ancestry, establishing that he comes from a long-standing military family. In the New Adventures novel The Dying Days by Lance Parkin, he talks about three ancestors who reached the rank of general. One, William Lethbridge-Stewart, was in the retinue of James VI of Scotland and I of England. The other two fought at Naseby and Waterloo. The Scales of Injustice names the latter as Major-General Fergus Lethbridge-Stewart. The Brigadier also says in The Dying Days that his father died in World War II, fighting alongside Field-Marshal Montgomery in Africa.
The Past Doctor Adventures novel The Wages of Sin by David A. McIntee established that the Brigadier had an ancestor named Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart who worked for the British Government in 1916. Deadly Reunion by Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts establishes that the Brigadier was a Second Lieutenant serving in Army Intelligence in 1944, although this makes the Brigadier older than other stories would suggest.
In the novels, Lethbridge-Stewart emerged from retirement again during the events of The Dying Days where he dealt with an invasion of Ice Warriors from Mars in 1997. At the end of that novel he was promoted to General. Lethbridge-Stewart was subsequently rejuvenated with alien technology in Happy Endings by Paul Cornell, taking place in 2010. The rejuvenated Lethbridge-Stewart, widowed as a result of an accident at sea but back with the military, next appeared in the BBC Books Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Shadows of Avalon, also by Cornell, where he still held the rank of General but preferred to be called "the Brigadier". According to The King of Terror by Keith Topping, Lethbridge-Stewart eventually passes away in the early 2050s.
Courtney played the Brigadier in two BBC Radio 4 Doctor Who plays set during the Third Doctor's era, The Paradise of Death (1993) and The Ghosts of N-Space (1996), alongside Pertwee and Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. For Big Finish, he has played the part of Lethbridge-Stewart in several plays, with Minuet in Hell revealing that he played a role in the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and also that he does covert work for the UN as a plausibly deniable agent. He also played an alternate universe version of the Brigadier in the Doctor Who Unbound play Sympathy for the Devil, opposite David Warner as the Doctor and David Tennant (later cast as the Tenth Doctor) as Colonel Brimmecombe-Wood. At the conclusion of Sympathy, the alternate Brigadier- referred to as 'Alistair'- joins Warner's Doctor as his companion, but after an unspecified amount of time travelling together, they part ways in the later audio Masters of War, when the two arrive on Skaro and force the Daleks and the Thals to join forces to fight off an invasion by a race known as the Quatch, Alistair remaining once the Quatch are defeated to help the two sides maintain their new truce.
Courtney also voiced the Brigadier in the 2001 webcast Death Comes to Time.
In December 2004, Big Finish released the first of a series of UNIT-based audio plays, where General Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart acted as a consultant to a new generation of officers and by series' end became UNIT's new Scientific Advisor. If the events in this series are to be reconciled with the books, these plays would seem to take place between the events of The Dying Days and Happy Endings, as this version of Lethbridge-Stewart does not seem to be rejuvenated. Also, the public does not believe in existence of aliens, which would appear to place it before the events of "The Christmas Invasion".
In the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip story Warkeeper's Crown (DWM #378–380), Lethbridge-Stewart made a reappearance alongside the Tenth Doctor after being kidnapped by Warlords as a tactical commander. He was an old officer stationed at Sandhurst.
A series of novels featuring the young Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart has been published by Candy Jar Books since 2015. The novels are licensed by the literary estate of co-creator Mervyn Haisman and endorsed by Henry Lincoln.
In 2017, The Third Doctor Adventures- Volume Five features Jon Culshaw acting as the Brigadier in a series of audios set during the Third Doctor's era.
In The Legacy of Time, a special six-part audio to celebrate Big Finish's twentieth anniversary of producing Doctor Who-related audios, the story The Sacrifice of Jo Grant sees Jo Grant and Kate Stewart of the present day being sent back to the 1970s by a series of temporal rifts, where they meet the Third Doctor as he investigates the anomalies in his time. While Kate attempts to avoid introducing herself to limit the risk of a paradox, the Doctor realizes her identity and convinces her to call her father, introducing herself as the commander of UNIT in the future without identifying herself by name, with the Brigadier (voiced by Jon Culshaw once again) telling her that he is assured that the future of UNIT is in good hands.
List of other appearances
Video
Wartime (voice only)
Downtime (novelised by scriptwriter Marc Platt as part of the Virgin Missing Adventures line)
Death Takes a Holiday
The Crystal Conundrum (voice only)
The Pair o' Docs Paradox
Twice Upon a Timelord
Liberty Hall
Audio dramas
BBC Radio
The Paradise of Death (novelised by scriptwriter Barry Letts as part of the Target Books novelisation line)
The Ghosts of N-Space (novelised by scriptwriter Barry Letts as part of the Virgin Missing Adventures line)
Big Finish Productions
The Spectre of Lanyon Moor (with the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe)
Minuet in Hell (with the Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard)
Zagreus (the TARDIS creates a holographic projection in the form of the Brigadier)
Sympathy for the Devil (Doctor Who Unbound series, out of normal Doctor Who continuity; travels with an alternate Third Doctor)
Masters of War (Doctor Who Unbound series, out of normal Doctor Who continuity; leaves an alternate Third Doctor after facing an alternate Davros and the Daleks)
UNIT: The Coup
UNIT: Time Heals
UNIT: The Wasting
The Blue Tooth (adventure related by the character Liz Shaw)
Old Soldiers
The Doll of Death (adventure related by the character Jo Grant)
The Three Companions
The Magician's Oath (adventure related by the character Captain Mike Yates)
The Mega (adventure related by the characters Jo Grant & Captain Mike Yates)
Shadow of the Past (adventure related by the character Liz Shaw)
The Many Deaths of Jo Grant (adventure related by the character Jo Grant)
The Rings of Ikiria (adventure related by the character Captain Mike Yates)
The Last Post (adventure related by the character Liz Shaw)
The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume Five (portrayed by Jon Culshaw)
The Legacy of Time: The Sacrifice of Jo Grant (cameo appearance; portrayed by Jon Culshaw)
’’Way of the Burryman/The Forth Generation’’ (portrayed by Jon Culshaw)
BBCi webcast
Death Comes to Time
Short Trips audios
Walls of Confinement
Novels
The Companions of Doctor Who
Harry Sullivan's War by Ian Marter
Virgin New Adventures
Blood Heat by Jim Mortimore (parallel universe version of the Brigadier)
No Future by Paul Cornell
Happy Endings by Paul Cornell
The Dying Days by Lance Parkin
Virgin Missing Adventures
Dancing the Code by Paul Leonard
The Eye of the Giant by Christopher Bulis
The Scales of Injustice by Gary Russell
Virgin sidestep novel
Who Killed Kennedy by David Bishop
Eighth Doctor Adventures
The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks
The Shadows of Avalon by Paul Cornell
Past Doctor Adventures
The Devil Goblins from Neptune by Martin Day and Keith Topping (Third Doctor, Liz, Benton & Yates)
Business Unusual by Gary Russell (Sixth Doctor & Mel)
The Face of the Enemy by David A. McIntee (Third Doctor's era; works with Benton, Yates, Ian, Barbara and the Master in the absence of the Third Doctor and Jo)
Deep Blue by Mark Morris (set in the Third Doctor's era but working with the Fifth, Tegan & Turlough; also Benton & Yates)
Last of the Gaderene by Mark Gatiss (Third Doctor, Jo, Benton & Yates)
Verdigris by Paul Magrs (Third Doctor, Jo, Benton & Yates)
The King of Terror by Keith Topping (Fifth Doctor, Tegan & Turlough)
Rags by Mick Lewis (Third Doctor, Jo, Benton & Yates)
The Shadow in the Glass by Justin Richards and Stephen Cole (Sixth Doctor)
Deadly Reunion by Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts (Third Doctor, Jo, Benton & Yates)
Island of Death by Barry Letts (Third Doctor, Jo, Benton & Yates)
Lethbridge-Stewart
The Forgotten Son by Andy Frankham-Allen
The Schizoid Earth by David A McIntee
Beast of Fang Rock by Andy Frankham-Allen (based on an idea by Terrance Dicks)
Mutually Assured Domination by Nick Walters
Moon Blink by Sadie Miller
The Showstoppers by Jonathan Cooper
The Grandfather Infestation by John Peel
Times Squared by Rick Cross
Blood of Atlantis by Simon A. Forward
Mind of Stone by Iain McLaughlin
Night of the Intelligence by Andy Frankham-Allen
The Daughters of Earth by Sarah Groenewegen
The Dreamer's Lament by Benjamin Burford-Jones
A Very Private Haunting by Sharon Bidwell
The New Unusual by Adrian Sherlock and Andy Frankham-Allen
The Man From Yesterday by Nick Walters
The Laughing Gnome: Scary Monsters by Simon A. Forward
The Laughing Gnome: Fear of The Web by Alyson Leeds
The Laughing Gnome: The Danger Men by Nick Walters
The Laughing Gnome: Rise of The Dominator by Robert Mammone
The Laughing Gnome: Lucy Wilson and The Bledoe Cadets by Tim Gambrell
The Laughing Gnome: On His Majesty's National Service by John Peel
Bloodlines: Home Fires Burn by Gareth Madgwick
Bloodlines: The Shadowman by Sharon Bidwell
Bloodlines: An Ordinary Man by Andy Frankham-Allen and Tim Gambrell
Bloodlines: The George Kostinen Mystery by Chris Lynch
Bloodlines: Foreword to the Past by Baz Greenland
I, Alistair by Robert Mammone
Domination Game by Alyson Leeds and Megan Fizell
Fear Frequency by George Ivanoff
The Haunting of Gabriel Chase by British author Andrew Allen
Warriors of Montu by Gareth Madgwick
The Overseers by James Middleditch
Blue Blood by Australian author Chris Thomas
A Most Haunted Man by Sarah Groenewegen
Legacy of the Dominator by Nick Walters
The Hiraeth Embrace by James Middleditch
Spheres of Influence by Violet Addison and David N. Smith
The Lucy Wilson Mysteries
Avatars of The Intelligence by Sue Hampton
Curse of The Mirror Clowns by Chris Lynch
The Midnight People by John Peel
The Bandril Invasion by Wink Taylor
The Brigadier and The Bledoe Cadets by Tim Gambrell
Novellas
The Life of Evans by John Peel
The Flaming Soldier by Christopher Bryant
The Lost Skin by Andy Frankham-Allen
Anthologies
The HAVOC Files
The HAVOC Files 2
The HAVOC Files 3
The HAVOC Files 4
The Lethbridge-Stewart Short Story Collection
Lineage
The Lethbridge-Stewart Short Story Collection 2
The HAVOC Files 2 - Special Edition
The HAVOC Files: The Laughing Gnome
The HAVOC Files: Loose Ends
The Lucy Wilson Mysteries: Christmas Crackers
The HAVOC Files 3 - Special Edition
Short stories
"Brief Encounter—Listening Watch" by Dan Abnett (Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1991)
"Brief Encounter: A Wee Deoch an..?" by Colin Baker (Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1991)
"The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back" by Vanessa Bishop (Decalog)
"Where the Heart Is" by Andy Lane (Decalog 2: Lost Property)
"UNITed We Fall" by Keith R.A. DeCandido (Decalog 3: Consequences)
"Freedom" by Steve Lyons (Short Trips)
"Degrees of Truth" by David A. McIntee (Short Trips audio book, read by Nicholas Courtney)
"Honest Living" by Jason Loborik (More Short Trips)
"Still Lives" by Ian Potter (Short Trips: Zodiac)
"The Switching" by Simon Guerrier (Short Trips: Zodiac)
"Hidden Talent" by Andrew Spokes (Short Trips: Companions)
"An Overture Too Early" by Simon Guerrier (Short Trips: The Muses)
"UNIT Christmas Parties: First Christmas" by Nick Wallace (Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury)
"UNIT Christmas Parties: Christmas Truce" by Terrance Dicks (Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury)
"UNIT Christmas Parties: Ships That Pass" by Karen Dunn (Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury)
"Faithful Friends" by Mark Wright & Cavan Scott (Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas)
"The Ambush" by Andy Frankham-Allen (Doctor Who Magazine, Lethbridge-Stewart: The HAVOC Files)
"Cowpats and Comfort" by Tim Gambrell (The Lethbridge-Stewart Quiz Book (Exclusive Edition))
Comics
"The Arkwood Experiments" by John Canning (TV Comic 944–949)
"The Multi-Mobile!" by John Canning (TV Comic 950–954)
"Insect" by John Canning (TV Comic 955–959)
"The Metal Eaters" by John Canning (TV Comic 960–964)
"The Fishmen of Carpantha" by John Canning (TV Comic 965–969)
"Doctor Who and the Rocks from Venus" by John Canning (TV Comic 970–976)
"Assassin from Space" by Patrick Williams (TV Comic Holiday Special 1970)
"Undercover" by Patrick Williams (TV Comic Holiday Special 1970)
"Castaway" by John Canning (TV Comic Annual 1971)
"Levitation" by John Canning (TV Comic Annual 1971)
"Fogbound" by Frank Langford (Doctor Who Holiday Special 1973)
"Secret of the Tower" by Alex Badia (Doctor Who Holiday Special 1973)
"Doomcloud" (Doctor Who Holiday Special 1974)
"The Time Thief" by Steve Livesey (Doctor Who Annual 1974)
"Menace of the Molags" by Steve Livesey (Doctor Who Annual 1974)
"Dead on Arrival" by Edgar Hodges (Doctor Who Annual 1975)
"The Man in the Ion Mask" by Dan Abnett and Brian Williamson (Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1991)
"Change of Mind" by Kate Orman and Barrie Mitchell (Doctor Who Magazine 221–223)
"Target Practice" by Gareth Roberts and Adrian Salmon (Doctor Who Magazine 234)
"Final Genesis" by Warwick Gray and Colin Andrew (Doctor Who Magazine 203: cameo appearance in parallel universe)
"Mark of Mandragora" by Dan Abnett (Doctor Who Magazine 167–172: has a small role as most of the UNIT leader's role is carried out by Muriel Frost)
"The Warkeeper's Crown" by Alan Barnes (Doctor Who Magazine 378–380)
"The Forgotten" by Tony Lee (writer) and Pia Guerra (artist) (IDW Publishing Issue #2: has a small part in the Third Doctor's segment)
"Prisoners of Time" by Scott and David Tipton. Issue three and issue twelve.
References outside of Doctor Who
The character also appears briefly in a cameo role at the end of writer Paul Cornell's novelisation of the 1997 ITV science-fiction serial The Uninvited. Although the character is not named in the book, the description is that of Lethbridge-Stewart and Cornell later admitted that this was indeed his intention.
Marvel Comics' Excalibur featured an organisation called W.H.O. (the Weird Happenings Organisation) run by a Brigadier Alysande Stuart. Her twin brother Alistaire was WHO's "scientific advisor" (the role the Doctor had in UNIT). A character named "Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart" had earlier appeared in three panels of Uncanny X-Men #218, supervising the arrest of the Juggernaut in Edinburgh, where he also calls out to a "Sergeant-Major Benton" at one point.
The Sherlock Holmes novel Waters of Death by Kel Richards features a naval commander called Ralph Lethbridge-Stewart, alongside Captain Harry Sullivan and Lieutenant Philip Benton. It is set in the same fictional location as the Doctor Who story Terror of the Zygons.
An unnamed army brigadier, who looks and acts very similar to Lethbridge-Stewart, appears in the comic strip Caballistics, Inc. He first appeared in the story Going Underground, where he is in charge of the army's response following a demon invasion of the London Underground; a member of his SAS team refers to "bloody robot yetis" having been down there once. He shows up again in the story Ashes, in charge of the military response to a devastating attack on Glasgow. This character is one of several references to both the Doctor Who universe and other sci-fi/horror properties in Caballistics.
Although unnamed, two characters strongly resembling Lethbridge-Stewart and Sergeant Benton (who was specifically named) appear in the John M. Ford Star Trek novel How Much for Just the Planet? at a rather treacherous golf course on the planet Direidi.
Similarly to Alysande Stuart, the comic book Jack Staff includes Commander Liz Stewart of S.M.I.L.E. (Secret Military Intelligence Lethal Executive).
The Brigadier briefly appears in Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne's Back in the USSA, supporting Britain's involvement in an alternate Vietnam War.
The Brigadier was referenced in name in the ABC Family show The Middleman. In the episode "The Clotharian Contamination Protocol", Wendy and The Middleman go to check out a returned Voyager probe. However, a nearby NASA listening station team also arrives. Using their random IDs, and due to the quick thinking of the Middleman, they are intimidated into leaving. As they go, the Middleman calls out the other team's lead, "Mr... Lethbridge-Stewart, if that is your real name!"
See also
United Nations Intelligence Taskforce
UNIT dating controversy
List of Doctor Who supporting characters
References
External links
Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart on the BBC's Doctor Who website
The Dying Days E-Book on the BBC website
Television characters introduced in 1968
Doctor Who audio characters
Recurring characters in Doctor Who
Fictional British Army officers
Fictional colonels
Fictional generals
UNIT personnel
Doctor Who companions
Fictional schoolteachers
The Sarah Jane Adventures characters
Fictional knights
Fictional diplomats
Fictional brigadiers
Scottish male characters in television
Fictional cyborgs
Crossover characters in television |
422994 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital%20object%20identifier | Digital object identifier | A digital object identifier (DOI) is a persistent identifier or handle used to uniquely identify various objects, standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). DOIs are an implementation of the Handle System; they also fit within the URI system (Uniform Resource Identifier). They are widely used to identify academic, professional, and government information, such as journal articles, research reports, data sets, and official publications. DOIs have also been used to identify other types of information resources, such as commercial videos.
A DOI aims to resolve to its target, the information object to which the DOI refers. This is achieved by binding the DOI to metadata about the object, such as a URL where the object is located. Thus, by being actionable and interoperable, a DOI differs from ISBNs or ISRCs which are identifiers only. The DOI system uses the indecs Content Model for representing metadata.
The DOI for a document remains fixed over the lifetime of the document, whereas its location and other metadata may change. Referring to an online document by its DOI should provide a more stable link than directly using its URL. But if its URL changes, the publisher must update the metadata for the DOI to maintain the link to the URL. It is the publisher's responsibility to update the DOI database. If they fail to do so, the DOI resolves to a dead link, leaving the DOI useless.
The developer and administrator of the DOI system is the International DOI Foundation (IDF), which introduced it in 2000. Organizations that meet the contractual obligations of the DOI system and are willing to pay to become a member of the system can assign DOIs. The DOI system is implemented through a federation of registration agencies coordinated by the IDF. By late April 2011 more than 50 million DOI names had been assigned by some 4,000 organizations, and by April 2013 this number had grown to 85 million DOI names assigned through 9,500 organizations.
Nomenclature and syntax
A DOI is a type of Handle System handle, which takes the form of a character string divided into two parts, a prefix and a suffix, separated by a slash.
prefix/suffix
The prefix identifies the registrant of the identifier and the suffix is chosen by the registrant and identifies the specific object associated with that DOI. Most legal Unicode characters are allowed in these strings, which are interpreted in a case-insensitive manner. The prefix usually takes the form 10.NNNN, where NNNN is a number greater than or equal to 1000, whose limit depends only on the total number of registrants. The prefix may be further subdivided with periods, like 10.NNNN.N.
For example, in the DOI name 10.1000/182, the prefix is 10.1000 and the suffix is 182. The "10" part of the prefix distinguishes the handle as part of the DOI namespace, as opposed to some other Handle System namespace, and the characters 1000 in the prefix identify the registrant; in this case the registrant is the International DOI Foundation itself. 182 is the suffix, or item ID, identifying a single object (in this case, the latest version of the DOI Handbook).
DOI names can identify creative works (such as texts, images, audio or video items, and software) in both electronic and physical forms, performances, and abstract works such as licenses, parties to a transaction, etc.
The names can refer to objects at varying levels of detail: thus DOI names can identify a journal, an individual issue of a journal, an individual article in the journal, or a single table in that article. The choice of level of detail is left to the assigner, but in the DOI system it must be declared as part of the metadata that is associated with a DOI name, using a data dictionary based on the indecs Content Model.
Display
The official DOI Handbook explicitly states that DOIs should display on screens and in print in the format doi:10.1000/182.
Contrary to the DOI Handbook, CrossRef, a major DOI registration agency, recommends displaying a URL (for example, https://doi.org/10.1000/182) instead of the officially specified format (for example, doi:10.1000/182) This URL is persistent (there is a contract that ensures persistence in the DOI.ORG domain), so it is a PURL – providing the location of an HTTP proxy server which will redirect web accesses to the correct online location of the linked item.
The CrossRef recommendation is primarily based on the assumption that the DOI is being displayed without being hyperlinked to its appropriate URL – the argument being that without the hyperlink it is not as easy to copy-and-paste the full URL to actually bring up the page for the DOI, thus the entire URL should be displayed, allowing people viewing the page containing the DOI to copy-and-paste the URL, by hand, into a new window/tab in their browser in order to go to the appropriate page for the document the DOI represents.
Since DOI is a namespace within the Handle System, it is semantically correct to represent it as the URI info:doi/10.1000/182.
Content
Major content of the DOI system currently includes:
Scholarly materials (journal articles, books, ebooks, etc.) through Crossref, a consortium of around 3,000 publishers; Airiti, a leading provider of Chinese and Taiwanese electronic academic journals; and the Japan Link Center (JaLC) an organization providing link management and DOI assignment for electronic academic journals in Japanese.
Research datasets through Datacite, a consortium of leading research libraries, technical information providers, and scientific data centers;
European Union official publications through the EU publications office;
The Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure project at Tsinghua University and the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (ISTIC), two initiatives sponsored by the Chinese government.
Permanent global identifiers for both commercial and non-commercial audio/visual content titles, edits, and manifestations through the Entertainment ID Registry, commonly known as EIDR.
In the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's publication service OECD iLibrary, each table or graph in an OECD publication is shown with a DOI name that leads to an Excel file of data underlying the tables and graphs. Further development of such services is planned.
Other registries include Crossref and the multilingual European DOI Registration Agency (mEDRA). Since 2015, RFCs can be referenced as doi:10.17487/rfc....
Features and benefits
The IDF designed the DOI system to provide a form of persistent identification, in which each DOI name permanently and unambiguously identifies the object to which it is associated (although when the publisher of a journal changes, sometimes all the DOIs will be changed, with the old DOIs no longer working). It also associates metadata with objects, allowing it to provide users with relevant pieces of information about the objects and their relationships. Included as part of this metadata are network actions that allow DOI names to be resolved to web locations where the objects they describe can be found. To achieve its goals, the DOI system combines the Handle System and the indecs Content Model with a social infrastructure.
The Handle System ensures that the DOI name for an object is not based on any changeable attributes of the object such as its physical location or ownership, that the attributes of the object are encoded in its metadata rather than in its DOI name, and that no two objects are assigned the same DOI name. Because DOI names are short character strings, they are human-readable, may be copied and pasted as text, and fit into the URI specification. The DOI name-resolution mechanism acts behind the scenes, so that users communicate with it in the same way as with any other web service; it is built on open architectures, incorporates trust mechanisms, and is engineered to operate reliably and flexibly so that it can be adapted to changing demands and new applications of the DOI system. DOI name-resolution may be used with OpenURL to select the most appropriate among multiple locations for a given object, according to the location of the user making the request. However, despite this ability, the DOI system has drawn criticism from librarians for directing users to non-free copies of documents, that would have been available for no additional fee from alternative locations.
The indecs Content Model as used within the DOI system associates metadata with objects. A small kernel of common metadata is shared by all DOI names and can be optionally extended with other relevant data, which may be public or restricted. Registrants may update the metadata for their DOI names at any time, such as when publication information changes or when an object moves to a different URL.
The International DOI Foundation (IDF) oversees the integration of these technologies and operation of the system through a technical and social infrastructure. The social infrastructure of a federation of independent registration agencies offering DOI services was modelled on existing successful federated deployments of identifiers such as GS1 and ISBN.
Comparison with other identifier schemes
A DOI name differs from commonly used Internet pointers to material, such as the Uniform Resource Locator (URL), in that it identifies an object itself as a first-class entity, rather than the specific place where the object is located at a certain time. It implements the Uniform Resource Identifier (Uniform Resource Name) concept and adds to it a data model and social infrastructure.
A DOI name also differs from standard identifier registries such as the ISBN, ISRC, etc. The purpose of an identifier registry is to manage a given collection of identifiers, whereas the primary purpose of the DOI system is to make a collection of identifiers actionable and interoperable, where that collection can include identifiers from many other controlled collections.
The DOI system offers persistent, semantically interoperable resolution to related current data and is best suited to material that will be used in services outside the direct control of the issuing assigner (e.g., public citation or managing content of value). It uses a managed registry (providing social and technical infrastructure). It does not assume any specific business model for the provision of identifiers or services and enables other existing services to link to it in defined ways. Several approaches for making identifiers persistent have been proposed. The comparison of persistent identifier approaches is difficult because they are not all doing the same thing. Imprecisely referring to a set of schemes as "identifiers" does not mean that they can be compared easily. Other "identifier systems" may be enabling technologies with low barriers to entry, providing an easy to use labeling mechanism that allows anyone to set up a new instance (examples include Persistent Uniform Resource Locator (PURL), URLs, Globally Unique Identifiers (GUIDs), etc.), but may lack some of the functionality of a registry-controlled scheme and will usually lack accompanying metadata in a controlled scheme. The DOI system does not have this approach and should not be compared directly to such identifier schemes. Various applications using such enabling technologies with added features have been devised that meet some of the features offered by the DOI system for specific sectors (e.g., ARK).
A DOI name does not depend on the object's location and, in this way, is similar to a Uniform Resource Name (URN) or PURL but differs from an ordinary URL. URLs are often used as substitute identifiers for documents on the Internet although the same document at two different locations has two URLs. By contrast, persistent identifiers such as DOI names identify objects as first class entities: two instances of the same object would have the same DOI name.
Resolution
DOI name resolution is provided through the Handle System, developed by Corporation for National Research Initiatives, and is freely available to any user encountering a DOI name. Resolution redirects the user from a DOI name to one or more pieces of typed data: URLs representing instances of the object, services such as e-mail, or one or more items of metadata. To the Handle System, a DOI name is a handle, and so has a set of values assigned to it and may be thought of as a record that consists of a group of fields. Each handle value must have a data type specified in its <type> field, which defines the syntax and semantics of its data. While a DOI persistently and uniquely identifies the object to which it is assigned, DOI resolution may not be persistent, due to technical and administrative issues.
To resolve a DOI name, it may be input to a DOI resolver, such as doi.org.
Another approach, which avoids typing or cutting-and-pasting into a resolver is to include the DOI in a document as a URL which uses the resolver as an HTTP proxy, such as https://doi.org/ (preferred) or http://dx.doi.org/, both of which support HTTPS. For example, the DOI 10.1000/182 can be included in a reference or hyperlink as https://doi.org/10.1000/182. This approach allows users to click on the DOI as a normal hyperlink. Indeed, as previously mentioned, this is how CrossRef recommends that DOIs always be represented (preferring HTTPS over HTTP), so that if they are cut-and-pasted into other documents, emails, etc., they will be actionable.
Other DOI resolvers and HTTP Proxies include the Handle System and PANGAEA. At the beginning of the year 2016, a new class of alternative DOI resolvers was started by http://doai.io. This service is unusual in that it tries to find a non-paywalled (often author archived) version of a title and redirects the user to that instead of the publisher's version. Since then, other open-access favoring DOI resolvers have been created, notably https://oadoi.org/ in October 2016 (later Unpaywall). While traditional DOI resolvers solely rely on the Handle System, alternative DOI resolvers first consult open access resources such as BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine).
An alternative to HTTP proxies is to use one of a number of add-ons and plug-ins for browsers, thereby avoiding the conversion of the DOIs to URLs, which depend on domain names and may be subject to change, while still allowing the DOI to be treated as a normal hyperlink. A disadvantage of this approach for publishers is that, at least at present, most users will be encountering the DOIs in a browser, mail reader, or other software which does not have one of these plug-ins installed.
IDF organizational structure
The International DOI Foundation (IDF), a non-profit organisation created in 1998, is the governance body of the DOI system. It safeguards all intellectual property rights relating to the DOI system, manages common operational features, and supports the development and promotion of the DOI system. The IDF ensures that any improvements made to the DOI system (including creation, maintenance, registration, resolution and policymaking of DOI names) are available to any DOI registrant. It also prevents third parties from imposing additional licensing requirements beyond those of the IDF on users of the DOI system.
The IDF is controlled by a Board elected by the members of the Foundation, with an appointed Managing Agent who is responsible for co-ordinating and planning its activities. Membership is open to all organizations with an interest in electronic publishing and related enabling technologies. The IDF holds annual open meetings on the topics of DOI and related issues.
Registration agencies, appointed by the IDF, provide services to DOI registrants: they allocate DOI prefixes, register DOI names, and provide the necessary infrastructure to allow registrants to declare and maintain metadata and state data. Registration agencies are also expected to actively promote the widespread adoption of the DOI system, to cooperate with the IDF in the development of the DOI system as a whole, and to provide services on behalf of their specific user community. A list of current RAs is maintained by the International DOI Foundation. The IDF is recognized as one of the federated registrars for the Handle System by the DONA Foundation (of which the IDF is a board member), and is responsible for assigning Handle System prefixes under the top-level 10 prefix.
Registration agencies generally charge a fee to assign a new DOI name; parts of these fees are used to support the IDF. The DOI system overall, through the IDF, operates on a not-for-profit cost recovery basis.
Standardization
The DOI system is an international standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization in its technical committee on identification and description, TC46/SC9. The Draft International Standard ISO/DIS 26324, Information and documentation – Digital Object Identifier System met the ISO requirements for approval. The relevant ISO Working Group later submitted an edited version to ISO for distribution as an FDIS (Final Draft International Standard) ballot, which was approved by 100% of those voting in a ballot closing on 15 November 2010. The final standard was published on 23 April 2012.
DOI is a registered URI under the info URI scheme specified by IETF . info:doi/ is the infoURI Namespace of Digital Object Identifiers.
The DOI syntax is a NISO standard, first standardised in 2000, ANSI/NISO Z39.842005 Syntax for the Digital Object Identifier.
The maintainers of the DOI system have deliberately not registered a DOI namespace for URNs, stating that:
See also
Notes
References
External links
Short DOI – DOI Foundation service for converting long DOIs to shorter equivalents
Factsheet: DOI System and Internet Identifier Specifications
CrossRef DOI lookup
Academic publishing
Electronic documents
Identifiers
Index (publishing) |
423014 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20titles%20and%20honours%20of%20Elizabeth%20II | List of titles and honours of Elizabeth II | Elizabeth II (21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) held numerous titles and honours, both during and before her time as monarch of each of her Commonwealth realms. Each is listed below; where two dates are shown, the first indicates the date of receiving the title or award (the title as Princess Elizabeth of York being given as from her birth), and the second indicates the date of its loss or renunciation.
Royal titles and styles
21 April 192611 December 1936: Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth of York
11 December 193620 November 1947: Her Royal Highness The Princess Elizabeth
20 November 19476 February 1952: Her Royal Highness The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh
6 February 19528 September 2022: Her Majesty The Queen
Upon Elizabeth's accession to the throne, she was asked by her Private Secretary what her regnal name would be, to which she responded, "My own, of coursewhat else?" Until 1953, her official style was by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Queen, Defender of the Faith. She was proclaimed as queen using that title in Canada and South Africa, whereas, in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, she was proclaimed as Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.
A decision was reached by Elizabeth's prime ministers at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference of 1952, whereby the Queen would accord herself different styles and titles in each of her realms, reflecting that in each state she acted as monarch of that particular country, regardless of her other roles. Canada's preferred format was: Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of Canada and of Her other realms and territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. However, as Australia wished to have the United Kingdom mentioned in all the Queen's titles, the resolution reached was a designation that included the United Kingdom as well as, for the first time, separate reference to the other Commonwealth realms. Thereafter, separate but parallel royal styles and titles acts were passed in each of the Commonwealth realms, granting Elizabeth a distinct but similarly constituted title in each state, meaning that when Elizabeth was crowned in the same year, she held seven separate titles.
With further evolution of the Commonwealth since that time, Elizabeth held at the time of her death 15 different regnal titles, one for each of the current Commonwealth realms. In all realms other than Canada and Grenada, the reference to the United Kingdom has been removed; Australia doing so in 1973, in contrast to the Australian government's position 20 years earlier. Traditionally, the Queen's titles are listed in the order in which the realms other than the United Kingdom (the original realm) first became Dominions—namely, Canada (1867), Australia (1901), and New Zealand (1907)—followed by the rest in the order in which the former colony became an independent realm: Jamaica (1962), The Bahamas (1973), Grenada (1974), Papua New Guinea (1975), the Solomon Islands (1978), Tuvalu (1978), Saint Lucia (1979), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (1979), Belize (1981), Antigua and Barbuda (1981) and Saint Kitts and Nevis (1983).
Owing to her status, Elizabeth II was usually just known as "The Queen" across the world.
The Queen's British styles and titles were read out at her funeral by David White, Garter Principal King of Arms, as follows:
The Queen's New Zealand styles and titles were read out at the State Memorial Service at the Wellington Cathedral on 26 September by Phillip O'Shea, New Zealand Herald of Arms Extraordinary, as follows:
Dispute in Scotland
Though the situation was the same in every one of the Queen's realms beyond the United Kingdom, only within Scotland did the title Elizabeth II cause controversy as there had never been an Elizabeth I in Scotland. In an act of sabotage, new Royal Mail post boxes in Scotland, bearing the royal cypher EIIR, were vandalised, after which, to avoid further problems, post boxes and Royal Mail vehicles in Scotland bore only the Crown of Scotland. A legal case, MacCormick v. Lord Advocate (1953 SC 396), was taken to contest the right of the Queen to title herself Elizabeth II within Scotland, arguing that to do so would be a breach of the Act of Union. The case, however, was lost on the grounds that the pursuers had not title to sue the Crown and the numbering of monarchs was part of the royal prerogative, and thus not governed by the Act of Union. Winston Churchill suggested that future British monarchs should be numbered according to either their English or Scottish predecessors, whichever number is higher.
At the opening ceremony of the devolved Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh in 1999, attended by the Queen, the Presiding Officer Lord Steel said at the close of his opening address: "It is good that today, once again, we the elected representatives of the people are able to welcome your majesty, not only as Queen of the United Kingdom, but seated as you are among us, to greet you in the historic and constitutionally correct manner, with warmth and affection, as Queen of Scots." In 2002 Winnie Ewing, then president of the Scottish National Party, wrote to the Queen asking her to adopt the title Elizabeth I in Scotland.
Other realms adopted the style "Queen Elizabeth II" despite never having been ruled by Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Regnal titles
Other
Other titles
Military ranks
24 February26 July 1945: Hon. Second Subaltern, Auxiliary Territorial Service
26 July 194524 July 1947: Hon. Junior Commander, Auxiliary Territorial Service
24 July 19471 February 1949: Hon. Senior Controller, Auxiliary Territorial Service
1 February 1949March 1950: Hon. Senior Controller, Women's Royal Army Corps
Commonwealth of Nations honours
Commonwealth realms
Appointments
Decorations and medals
Other Commonwealth countries
Appointments
Decorations and medals
Foreign honours
Appointments
Dynastic orders
Decorations
Honorary military positions
Australia
19532022: Captain-General of the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Australian Engineers
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Australian Infantry Corps
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Australian Army Ordnance Corps
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps
19532022: Air-Commodore-in-Chief of the Australian Citizen Air Force
Canada
19472022: Colonel-in-Chief of
19472022: Colonel-in-Chief of the 48th Highlanders of Canada
19502022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada (Princess Louise's)
19522022: Captain-General of the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Governor General's Horse Guards
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the King's Own Calgary Regiment
19531967: Colonel-in-Chief of the Corps of Royal Canadian Engineers
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Governor General's Foot Guards
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Canadian Grenadier Guards
19531956: Colonel-in-Chief of the Carleton and York Regiment
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Canadian Guards
19562022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal New Brunswick Regiment
19581968: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps
19772022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Military Engineers Branch
19812022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Calgary Highlanders
2013–2022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders
19531968: Air-Commodore-in-Chief of the Air Reserve Canada
19532012: Honorary Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
20122022: Commissioner-in-Chief of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Fiji
19701987: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Fiji Military Forces
Ghana
19591960: Colonel-in-Chief of the Ghana Regiment of Infantry
New Zealand
19532022: Captain-General of the Royal Regiment of New Zealand Artillery
19532022: Captain-General of the Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Corps of Royal New Zealand Engineers
19531964: Colonel-in-Chief of the Countess of Ranfurly's Own Auckland Regiment
19531964: Colonel-in-Chief of the Wellington Regiment (City of Wellington's Own)
19642022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment
19771996: Colonel-in-Chief Royal of the New Zealand Army Ordnance Corps
19532022: Air-Commodore-in-Chief of the Territorial Air Force of New Zealand
South Africa
19471961: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Durban Light Infantry
19471961: Colonel-in-Chief of the South African Railways and Harbours Brigade
19521961: Colonel-in-Chief of the Imperial Light Horse
19531961: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Natal Carbineers
19531961: Colonel-in-Chief of the Kaffrarian Rifles
United Kingdom
19421952: Colonel of the Grenadier Guards
19472006: Colonel-in-Chief of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's)
19471993: Colonel-in-Chief of the 16th/5th The Queen's Royal Lancers
19492022: Honorary Brigadier of the Women's Royal Army Corps
19522022: Colonel-in-Chief of The Life Guards
19521969: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Horse Guards
19522022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Grenadier Guards
19522022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Coldstream Guards
19522022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Scots Guards
19522022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Irish Guards
19522022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Welsh Guards
19522022: Captain-General of the Royal Regiment of Artillery
19522022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Corps of Royal Engineers
19522022: Captain-General of the Honourable Artillery Company
19522022: Master of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets
19531971: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Scots Greys
19532022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Tank Regiment
19532006: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Welch Fusiliers
19531970: Colonel-in-Chief of the Loyal Regiment
19531966: Colonel-in-Chief of the King's Royal Rifle Corps
19531956: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps
19531956: Honorary Colonel of the Queen's Own Worcestershire Hussars
19532022: Captain-General of the Combined Cadet Force
19531959: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal West African Frontier Force
19531964: Colonel-in-Chief of the King's African Rifles
19531964: Colonel-in-Chief of the Northern Rhodesia Regiment
19531974: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Malta Artillery
19531972: Colonel-in-Chief of the King's Own Malta Regiment
19531970: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Rhodesia Regiment
19531992: Colonel-in-Chief of the Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry
19561963: Colonel-in-Chief of the Queen's Own Nigeria Regiment
19562022: Honorary Colonel of the Queen's Own Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry
19591963: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Nigerian Military Forces
19591971: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Sierra Leone Military Forces
19642022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Malawi Rifles
1 April 196410 June 2011: Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom
19662007: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Green Jackets
19692022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Blues and Royals (Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons)
19702006: Colonel-in-Chief of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment
19712022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards
19711999: Colonel-in-Chief of the Queen's Own Yeomanry
19731992: Colonel-in-Chief of the Queen's Own Mercian Yeomanry
19772022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Corps of Royal Military Police
19922022: Patron of the Royal Army Chaplains' Department
19922022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Adjutant General's Corps
19932022: Affiliated Colonel-in-Chief of the Queen's Gurkha Engineers
19932022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Queen's Royal Lancers
19942014: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Mercian and Lancastrian Yeomanry
20062022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Welsh
20062022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Regiment of Scotland
20062022: Colonel-in-Chief of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment
20062022: Royal Colonel of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 5th Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland
19531996: Air-Commodore-in-Chief of the Royal Observer Corps
19532022: Air-Commodore-in-Chief of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force
19532022: Air-Commodore-in-Chief of the Royal Air Force Regiment
19532022: Commandant-in-Chief of the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell
19772022: Royal Honorary Air Commodore of the Royal Air Force Marham
20002022: Royal Honorary Air Commodore of the 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron
20142022: Lady Sponsor of HMS Queen Elizabeth
Non-national titles and honours
Freedom of the City
Commonwealth realms
11 June 1947: London
5 July 1947: Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead
16 July 1947: Edinburgh
20 September 1947: Royal Burgh of Stirling
27 May 1948: Cardiff
26 May 1949: Belfast
10 October 1951: Ottawa
Foreign
1976: Philadelphia
27 February 1983: Long Beach, California
1988: Madrid
Memberships and fellowships
Scholastic
Degrees
Others
In 1975 she received the highest distinction of the Scout Association of Japan, the Golden Pheasant Award.
In April 2013, the Queen was presented with an honorary BAFTA award by Sir Kenneth Branagh in a ceremony at Windsor Castle. The BAFTA was given for her "lifelong support of the British film and television industry".
On 21 June 2022, the Queen was presented with the Canterbury Cross by the Archbishop of Canterbury "for unstinting support of the Church throughout her reign."
She received the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) Lifetime Achievement Award for her dedication to equestrian sports.
On 14 May 2023, the Queen posthumously won a BAFTA 'Most Memorable Moment Award' as part of her role in 'Paddington meets The Queen from the Platinum Jubilee: Party at the Palace!' via a public vote.
See also
Style of the British sovereign
Style and title of the Canadian sovereign
List of things named after Elizabeth II
List of titles and honours of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
List of titles and honours of Charles III
List of titles and honours of Queen Camilla
List of titles and honours of Anne, Princess Royal
List of titles and honours of George VI
List of titles and honours of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother
List of titles and honours of William, Prince of Wales
List of titles and honours of Catherine, Princess of Wales
List of titles and honours of George V
List of titles and honours of Mary of Teck
List of titles and honours of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn
List of honours of the British royal family by country
Flags of Elizabeth II
Notes
References
External links
Hansard recording of debate on the royal title in the British House of Commons, 3 March 1953
Titles and honours
Lists of titles by person of the United Kingdom
British monarchy-related lists
BAFTA winners (people)
Collars of the Order of the Liberator General San Martin
Collars of the Order of the White Lion
Honorary Companions of Honour with Collar of the National Order of Merit (Malta)
Companions of the Order of the Crown of India
Grand Collars of the Order of Saint James of the Sword
Grand Cordons of the Order of Valour
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour
Recipients of the Order of the Tower and Sword
3
3
3
Recipients of the Grand Star of the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria
Grand Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary (civil)
Grand Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland
Grand Crosses with Golden Chain of the Order of Vytautas the Great
Grand Crosses of the Order of the Sun of Peru
Grand Commanders of the Order of the Niger
Knights Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
Knights of the Golden Fleece of Spain
Honorary Companions of the Order of the Star of Ghana
Recipients of the Collar of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana
Recipients of the Darjah Utama Temasek
Grand Crosses Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Commonwealth royal styles
First Class of the Order of the Star of Romania
Recipients of the Order of the White Eagle (Poland)
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Falcon
Recipients of orders, decorations, and medals of Ethiopia
Recipients of the Collar of Honour
fr:Élisabeth II#Titres et honneurs |
423021 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe | Ahnenerbe | The (, "Ancestral Heritage") was a (SS) pseudo-scientific organization which was active in Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1945. It was established by Heinrich Himmler in July 1935 as an SS appendage devoted to the task of promoting the racial doctrines espoused by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. The was composed of scholars and scientists from a broad range of academic disciplines and fostered the idea that the German people descended from an Aryan race which was racially superior to other racial groups.
Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and transformed the country into a one-party state governed as a dictatorship under the control of the Nazi Party. He espoused the idea that the German people were descended from the Aryan race which, Hitler claimed in contrast to established academic understandings, had invented most major developments in human history, such as agriculture, art, and writing. The majority of the world's scholarly community did not accept this, and the Nazis established the Ahnenerbe in order to provide evidence for Nazi racial theories and to promote these ideas to the German public. Ahnenerbe scholars interpreted evidence to fit Hitler's beliefs, and some consciously fabricated evidence in order to do so. The organisation sent expeditions to other parts of the world, intent on finding evidence of historical Aryan expansion.
The government of Nazi Germany used the organization's research to justify many of their policies, including the Holocaust. Nazi propaganda also cited claims that archaeological evidence indicated that the Aryan race had historically resided in eastern Europe to justify German expansion into the region. In 1937, the became an official branch of the SS and was renamed the "Research and Teaching Community in Ancestral Heritage" (). Many of their investigations were placed on hold after the outbreak of World War II in 1939, though they continued to carry out new research in areas under German occupation after Operation Barbarossa was launched in 1941.
Towards the end of World War II in Europe, members destroyed much of the organisation's paperwork to avoid being incriminated in forthcoming war crimes trials. Numerous members escaped Allied denazification policies and remained active in West Germany's archaeological establishment in the postwar era. This stifled scholarly research into the , which only intensified after German reunification in 1990. Ideas promoted by the have retained an appeal for some neo-Nazi and far-right circles and have also influenced later pseudoarchaeologists.
Background
Adolf Hitler believed that one could divide humanity into three groups: "the founders of culture, the bearers of culture, the destroyers of culture". The founders of culture, in Hitler's view, were a biologically distinct Aryan race who (he believed) had been tall, blond, and originating in Northern Europe. He believed that in prehistory, the Aryan race had been responsible for all significant developments in human culture, including agriculture, architecture, music, literature, and the visual arts. He believed that most modern Germans were the descendants of these Aryans and had genetically inherited the Aryans' biological superiority to other races. The destroyers of culture, in Hitler's view, were the Jews, whom he regarded not as a genetically diverse population sharing certain ethno-cultural and religious traits—as they were then widely recognized—but as a unified, biologically distinct race. He believed that wherever Jews went, they damaged and ultimately destroyed the cultures surrounding them.
Hitler had promoted his ideas about the greatness of Germany's ancestors in his 1925 book, . Outside Germany, most scholars and scientists regarded Hitler's ideas about human evolution and prehistory as nonsense, in part due to the absence of any evidence that North European communities had ever originated major developments in prehistory, such as the development of agriculture and writing, all of which first appeared in the Near East and in Asia.
In January 1929 Hitler appointed Nazi Party member Heinrich Himmler to head the (SS), a paramilitary group founded in 1925 to serve as personal bodyguards to Hitler and other Nazis. Himmler set out to re-organise the SS, introducing a better system of organisation, and gathering intelligence on prominent Jews and Freemasons, as well as on rival political groups. In 1929, Himmler launched an SS recruitment campaign, and by the end of 1931 the group had 10,000 members. Himmler aimed to ensure that this membership was as racially Nordic as possible, establishing the SS Race and Settlement Main Office (RuSHA) to screen both applicants and the women whom SS members proposed to marry. In believing in the existence of a "Nordic" racial type which was the purest survival of the ancient Aryans, Himmler was influenced by the Nordicist ideas of Hans F. K. Günther (1891–1968), which had been popular in German nationalist circles over the preceding decades.
Himmler had an abiding interest in the past, and in how it could provide a blueprint for the future. However, his views of the ancient Germanic peoples differed from Hitler's in certain areas. Hitler was perplexed as to why ancient societies in southern Europe had developed more advanced technology and architecture than their contemporaries in northern Europe. Hitler stated that "People make a tremendous fuss about the excavations carried out in districts inhabited by our forebears of the pre-Christian era. I am afraid that I cannot share their enthusiasm, for I cannot help remembering that, while our ancestors were making these vessels out of stone and clay, over which our archaeologists rave, the Greeks had already built the Acropolis." Hitler explained this by claiming that the Aryans must also have inhabited the south of the continent and that they were responsible for establishing the societies of ancient Greece and Rome. Specifically, he believed that it was the warmer climates of the south that enabled these Aryans to develop in ways that those living further north, in colder and wetter climates, did not. Himmler was aware of these views but, unlike Hitler, admired what he believed was the fierceness and valour of the Germanic tribes of northern Europe. He was particularly interested in Tacitus's Germania, an ethnographic and historical account of the Iron-Age Germanic tribes written by the Roman historian at the end of the first century CE.
Nazi Party takes power
In the 1932 federal election, the Nazis secured 230 seats in the Reichstag, making them the largest single party but without a controlling majority. Six months later, President Paul von Hindenburg invited Hitler to become Chancellor, after which the latter cemented Nazi dominance over the government. In February 1933, Hitler convinced von Hindenburg to issue the Reichstag Fire Decree, legally suspending civil liberties. Himmler, who was newly appointed as the police chief of Munich, ordered the arrests of those he regarded as a threat to the Nazis—including journalists, labour organisers, Jewish community leaders, socialists, and communists—and their incarceration in Dachau concentration camp. Hitler approved of Himmler's tactics and appointed him head of the political police across Germany.
In 1933, Himmler initiated plans to establish a "Nordic Academy" to assist the instruction of the SS upper ranks. He was assisted in this by Karl Maria Wiligut, an occultist who was popular in German ultra-nationalist circles. Himmler brought Wiligut into the SS—where he eventually rose to the rank of Brigadeführer—and gave him a private villa in Berlin.
Using Wiligut's prophecies as his guide, Himmler selected Wewelsburg castle in Westphalia to serve as a base for many SS operations. The architect Hermann Bartels was employed to oversee renovations to the castle to make it fit for the SS's use. As part of these alterations, one of the rooms in the building became known as "the Grail Room" with a rock crystal representing the Holy Grail being placed in a central position. Himmler also established a private museum at the castle, employing the young archaeologist Wilhelm Jordan to manage it.
In 1934, Himmler met the Dutch prehistorian Herman Wirth, who was then living in Germany, at the home of Johann von Leers, a Nazi propagandist.
Wirth was one of the most controversial prehistorians in Germany. After examining symbols found in rural Frisian folk art, he became convinced that they represented the survival of an ancient script used by a prehistoric Nordic civilisation. This script, Wirth believed, was the world's oldest written language and had been the basis for all other ancient scripts. Wirth also believed that if he could decipher it, he could then learn the nature of the ancient religion of the Aryan race. This belief conflicted with established scholarly understandings of the past; by the 1930s, scholars were aware that the world's two oldest scripts were those of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and that northern Europe only developed its own form of literacy, that of the runes, under the influence of Etruscan script between 400 BCE to 50 CE. Attempting to explain the lack of any archaeological or historical evidence for an ancient advanced Nordic civilisation, Wirth claimed that the Aryans had evolved in an Arctic homeland two million years ago, before establishing their advanced society on a land in the North Atlantic, which had since sunken into the sea, giving rise to the stories about Atlantis.
Wirth's ideas were rejected and ridiculed by the German archaeological establishment, although they had gained the support of several wealthy backers, which assisted him in promoting them. Himmler was among those who liked Wirth's ideas. Himmler was interested in the pre-Christian religions of northern Europe, believing that a modern Pagan religion modelled on them could replace Christianity as the primary religion of the German people. Himmler disliked Christianity because of its Semitic origins, its presentation of Jesus of Nazareth as a Jew, and its advocacy of charity and compassion. Later, Himmler privately told his personal physician that after the Second World War, "the old Germanic gods will be restored".
History
Formation
On July 1, 1935, Himmler organised a meeting at the Berlin headquarters of the SS where he discussed his desire to launch a prehistoric research institute. Both Wirth and the agriculturalist Richard Walther Darré were present, and both responded with enthusiasm to the idea. The group was launched as a department of RuSHA. Wirth became the group's president, while Himmler took the role of superintendent, a position entailing considerable control by placing him in charge of its board of trustees. Its formal goal was "to promote the science of ancient intellectual history".
The organisation was initially named the "" (Society for the Study of the History of Primeval Ideas), but this was soon shortened to Ahnenerbe. This was a German term for "something inherited from the forefathers". The Ahnenerbe's first premises were at number 29 and 30 of the Brüderstrasse, a thirteenth-century street in Berlin. These corner buildings were rented from the city's department store magnate Rudolf Herdzog. Initially, it employed seven members of staff. Reflecting Wirth's fixation on the idea of an ancient Aryan script, the organisation's early focus was upon what Wirth called "script and symbol studies". One of its researchers, Yrjö von Grönhagen, was for instance tasked with collecting the Finnish wooden calendars which were engraved with various symbols.
Starting in 1934, Himmler began financially supporting and visiting excavations in Germany. This brought him into contact with archaeologists like , Hans Schleif, and Wilhelm Unverzagt, director of the in Berlin. Initially, there were two departments within the SS engaged in archaeology: the of the and the at the RuSHA. The latter ("RA IIIB") was established in 1934 and was supposed to serve as a "general staff" for all SS activities related to prehistory. It was responsible for archaeological research and related propaganda and led by Rolf Höhne, a geologist. Höhne was eventually replaced by Peter Paulsen, an archaeologist, in October 1937. The department did not conduct any excavations itself, but was intended to extend the influence of the SS over other institutions, especially those responsible for education/research and monument preservation. In fact, Langsdorff did this in Himmler's personal staff. The department also tried to make use of pre-history in the training and indoctrination of SS members. When the RuSHA was restructured, the department was dissolved with its responsibilities passing to the . The in Himmler's personal staff was established in 1935 on the initiative of Langsdorff. In March 1937, Höhne joined the leadership of this department. By 1937, it was responsible for SS excavations and maintained its own personnel for this activity.
The organization's official mission was twofold. Its first purpose was to reveal new evidence for the accomplishments of the ancestors of the modern Germans "using exact scientific methods". Its second purpose was to convey its findings to the German public through magazine articles, books, museum exhibits, and scholarly conferences.
According to Pringle, it was however "in the business of myth-making", repeatedly "distorting the truth and churning out carefully tailored evidence to support the racial ideas of Adolf Hitler." Some members of the Ahnenerbe consciously altered their evidence and interpretations to match Hitler's beliefs; others appear to have been unaware of how their adherence to Nazi doctrine was shaping their interpretations.
Himmler regarded the Ahnenerbe as an elite think tank which would sweep away previous scholarship on the development of humanity and reveal that Hitler's ideas on the subject were true.
Himmler also believed that the group's investigations might reveal ancient secrets about agriculture, medicine, and warfare which would benefit Nazi Germany.
It employed scholars from a wide range of academic fields, including archaeology, anthropology, ethnology, folkloristics, runology, Classics, history, musicology, philology, biology, zoology, botany, astronomy, and medicine. Himmler believed that scholars active in all of these different fields would piece together a view of the past that would revolutionise established interpretations; in his words, it would represent "hundreds of thousands of little mosaic stones, which portray the true picture of the origins of the world."
On July 1, 1935, at SS headquarters in Berlin, Himmler met with five "racial experts" representing Darré and with Wirth. Together they established an organization called the "German Ancestral Heritage—Society for the Study of the History of Primeval Ideas" (), shortened to its better-known form in 1937. At the meeting they designated its official goal, “to promote the science of ancient intellectual history,” and appointed Himmler as its superintendent, with Wirth serving as its president. Himmler appointed Wolfram Sievers (General Secretary) of the Ahnenerbe.
Through 1937, the Ahnenerbe was essentially engaged in amateur research. Financial and academic pressure caused Himmler to start looking for an alternative to Wirth as early as the spring of 1936. In September, Hitler negatively referred to Wirth's beliefs regarding Atlantis and their influence on "Böttcherstrasse architecture" in a speech at the .
In March 1937, the Ahnenerbe was given a new statute, implementing the (leader principle) and giving Himmler extensive powers. Wirth was deposed as president and appointed honorary president, a powerless position. Himmler's position as was given more power.
Walther Wüst was appointed the new president of the Ahnenerbe. Wüst was an expert on India and a dean at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, working on the side as a for the (SD, Security Service). Referred to as The Orientalist by Wolfram Sievers, Wüst had been recruited by him in May 1936 because of his ability to simplify science for the common man. After being appointed president, Wüst began improving the Ahnenerbe, moving the offices to a new headquarters that cost in the Dahlem neighborhood of Berlin. He also worked to limit the influence of “those he deemed scholarly upstarts,” which included cutting communication with the RuSHA office of Karl Maria Wiligut.
The led by Sievers was turned into the institution's . The Ahnenerbe was renamed . It was moved from the RuSHA to Himmlers's personal staff.
Wirth and Wilhelm Teudt lost their departments in Ahnenerbe in 1938. In 1939, the statutes were changed again and Wirth was deposed as honorary president. Himmler's and Wüsts' titles were switched with Himmler now the president. Next to Wüst, the academic with most influence in the institution after 1939 was Herbert Jankuhn, who in 1937 still had categorically rejected cooperation with the "unscientific" Ahnenerbe.
Ahnenerbe was a mix between an SS department and an . Membership was open to all natural and legal persons. Its staff were SS members, many also working in other SS positions, and thus subject to SS jurisdiction.
In late 1936, Ahnenerbe took over the publication of Teudt's magazine , first in cooperation with Teudt, then without him. The monthly now became the official voice of Ahnenerbe and was aimed at a wider audience. From December 1936, the magazine was distributed free of charge to all SS leaders.
Cooperation with other SS departments was initially limited, but improved after 1937. Contacts with the SD-HA and the editorial team of the SS weekly intensified. Ahnenerbe eventually had the scientific responsibility for the and in conjunction with the SS-HA, Ahnenerbe established and .
In 1939, the Ahnenerbe held its first independent annual convention, at Kiel. The event's success contributed to the trend that archaeologists were increasingly turning to the Ahnenerbe and away from Alfred Rosenberg's rival .
In fiscal year 1938–1939, the budget for the excavations department was , about 12% of the Ahnenerbe's total budget. More than a third of that went to the Haithabu activities. Under Jankuhn's direction four more archaeological departments were set up: in April 1938 the (a laboratory for analyzing pollen) was established at Dahlem under the leadership of . The at Wilhelmshaven led by , the led by Martin Rudolph and the directed by followed in 1939.
As a gift for Hitler's fiftieth birthday, among the presents which Himmler procured for him was a set of leather bound books, one of which was on the subject of the Ahnenerbe's research.
The Ahnenerbe sought to cultivate an air of professional integrity. The Ahnenerbe became an integral part of the SS.
By 1939, the Ahnenerbe employed 137 scholars and scientists, as well as 82 support workers, including artists, photographers, laboratory technicians, librarians, accountants, and secretaries.
The Holocaust
Himmler used the Ahnenerbe's research to fuel and justify the Holocaust. In a 1937 speech at Bad Tölz, Himmler announced that the bog bodies of northwestern Europe, which testified to an Iron Age tradition in which individuals were deliberately killed and deposited in bogs, must have represented the eradication of homosexuals. This was an idea that he had adopted from Ahnenerbe archaeologist Herbert Jankuhn. His adoption of this suggestion was linked to his homophobic fear that male homosexuality was transmittable and that it could spread within the ranks of the SS and other spaces of male bonding unless strong measures were implemented to prevent it. Himmler then claimed this alleged ancient tradition as legitimation for the extermination of homosexuals within his own society. As many as 15,000 gay men were rounded up and imprisoned in concentration camps, where up to 60 percent died.
Second World War
Amid the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Ahnenerbe sent a team into Warsaw to remove any items from its museums which they believed to be German in origin. In 1939, the Ahnenerbe's further four planned expeditions—to Iran, the Canary Islands, the Andes, and Iceland—were indefinitely postponed. At the end of the war in Europe, members of the Ahnenerbe destroyed much of the organisation's paperwork lest it incriminate them during future war crime tribunals.
Institutes
The Ahnenerbe had several different institutes or sections for its departments of research. Most of these were archeological but others included the Pflegestätte für Wetterkunde (Meteorology Section) headed by Obersturmführer Dr Hans Robert Scultetus, founded on the basis that Hanns Hörbiger's could be used to provide accurate long-range weather forecasts, and a section devoted to musicology, whose aim was to determine "the essence" of German music. It recorded folk music on expeditions to Finland and the Faroe Islands, from ethnic Germans of the occupied territories, and in South Tyrol. The section made sound recordings, transcribed manuscripts and songbooks, and photographed and filmed instrument use and folk dances. The lur, a Bronze Age musical instrument, became central to this research, which concluded that Germanic consonance was in direct conflict to Jewish atonalism.
Expeditions
Karelia
In 1935, Himmler contacted a Finnish nobleman and author, Yrjö von Grönhagen, after seeing one of his articles about the Kalevala folklore in a Frankfurt newspaper. Grönhagen agreed to lead an expedition through the Karelia region of Finland to record pagan sorcerers and witches. Because there was uncertainty about whether the Karelians would allow photography, the Finnish illustrator Ola Forsell also accompanied the team. Musicologist brought along a magnetophon, hoping to record pagan chants.
The team departed on their expedition in June 1936. Their first success was with a traditional singer, , who knew a song closely resembling one in the Kalevala although he was unaware of the book. Later, in Tolvajärvi, the team photographed and recorded Hannes Vornanen playing a traditional Finnish kantele.
One of the team's final successes was in finding Miron-Aku, a soothsayer believed to be a witch by locals. Upon meeting the group, she claimed to have foreseen their arrival. The team persuaded her to perform a ritual for the camera and tape recorder in which she summoned the spirits of ancestors and "divine[d] future events." The team also recorded information on Finnish saunas.
Bohuslän
After a slide show on February 19, 1936 of his trip to Bohuslän, a region in southwestern Sweden, Wirth convinced Himmler to launch an expedition to the region, the first official expedition financed by the Ahnenerbe. Bohuslän was known for its massive quantity of petroglyph rock carvings, which Wirth believed were evidence of an ancient writing system predating all known systems. Himmler appointed Wolfram Sievers to be the managing director of the expedition, likely because of Wirth's earlier troubles balancing finances.
On August 4, 1936, the expedition set off on a three-month trip, starting at the German island of Rügen, then continuing to Backa, the first recorded rock-art site in Sweden. Despite the existence of scenes showing warriors, animals and ships, Wirth focused on the lines and circles that he thought made up a prehistoric alphabet. While his studies were largely based on personal belief, rather than objective scientific research, Wirth made interpretations of the meanings of ideograms carved in the rock, such as a circle bisected by a vertical line representing a year and a man standing with raised arms representing what Wirth called "the Son of God." His team proceeded to make casts of what Wirth deemed the most important carvings and then carried the casts to camp, where they were crated and sent back to Germany. Once satisfied with their work at the site, the team set out on a trek through Sweden, eventually reaching the Norwegian island of Lauvøylandet.
Italy
In 1937, the Ahnenerbe sent the archaeologist Franz Altheim and his wife, the photographer Erika Trautmann, to Val Camonica, to study prehistoric rock inscriptions. The two returned to Germany claiming that they had found traces of Nordic runes on the rocks, supposedly confirming that ancient Rome was founded by Nordic incomers.
Also, an expedition to Sardinia was planned in the 1930s, but the reasons for it still remain unknown.
Central Eurasia
In 1938, Franz Altheim and his research partner Erika Trautmann requested the Ahnenerbe sponsor their expedition from Central Europe through Western Asia to study an internal power struggle of the Roman Empire, which they believed was fought between the Nordic and Semitic peoples. Eager to credit the vast success of the Roman Empire to people of a Nordic background, the Ahnenerbe agreed to match the put forward by Hermann Göring, an old friend of Trautmann's.
In August 1938, after spending a few days traveling through remote hills searching for ruins of Dacian kingdoms, the two researchers arrived at their first major stop in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. There Grigore Florescu, the director of the Municipal Museum, met with them, and discussed both history and the politics of the day, including the activities of the Iron Guard.
After traveling through Istanbul, Athens, and Lebanon, the researchers went to Damascus. They were not welcomed by the French, who ruled Syria as a colony at the time. The newly-sovereign Kingdom of Iraq was being courted for an alliance with Germany, and Fritz Grobba, the German envoy to Baghdad, arranged for Altheim and Trautmann to meet with local researchers and be driven to Parthian and Persian ruins in southern Iraq, as well as Babylon.
Through Baghdad, the team went north to Assur where they met Sheikh Adjil el Yawar, a leader of the Shammar Bedouin tribe and commander of the northern Camel Corps. He discussed German politics and his desire to duplicate the success of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud who had recently ascended to power in Saudi Arabia. With his support, the team traveled to their final major stop, the ruins of Hatra on the former border between the Roman and Persian empires.
New Swabia
The third German Antarctic Expedition took place between 1938 and 1939. It was led by Alfred Ritscher (1879–1963).
Germany
Hedeby
Excavations that had been ongoing at Hedeby since 1930 were formally put under the aegis of Ahnenerbe in 1938 by Jankuhn.
Baden-Württemberg
In 1937–1938, Gustav Riek led an excavation at the Heuneburg on the Danube in Baden-Württemberg, where an ancient fortress had been discovered much earlier. The Ahnenerbe thus won out over Hans Reinerth of the who had competed for the excavation. Riek focused on the burial mound known as where he found the main burial chamber to have been plundered in antiquity. In its direct vicinity another grave was discovered, however, that included rich grave furnishings. Due to the outbreak of war in 1939 the excavations were discontinued.
A private expedition by Richard Anders and Wiligut into the Murg Valley of northwestern Baden-Württemberg had nothing to do with the Ahnenerbe.
Mauern
The Ahnenerbe also was active in the (Mauern caves) in the Franconian Jura. R.R. Schmidt discovered red ochre, a common pigment for cave paintings made by the Cro-Magnon.
In autumn 1937, , a Frisian nationalist who had applied to the SS Excavations Department earlier that year, took over the excavation. His team proceeded to find artifacts such as burins, ivory pendants, and a woolly mammoth skeleton. They also discovered Neanderthal remains buried with what appeared to be throwing spears and javelins, a technology thought to have been developed by the Cro-Magnons.
Bohmers interpreted this to mean that Cro-Magnons had left these stones in the caves over 70,000 years before, and this was therefore the oldest Cro-Magnon site in the world. To validate his claims, Bohmers traveled around Europe speaking with colleagues and organizing exhibitions, notably in the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
France
At the Parisian Institute for Human Paleontology, Bohmers met with Abbé Henri Breuil, an expert on cave art. Breuil arranged for Bohmers to visit Trois Frères, a site whose owners allowed only a small number of visitors. First, however, Bohmers took a quick trip to London, followed by a tour of several other French points of interest: Font-de-Gaume (a site featuring Cro-Magnon cave paintings), Teyat, La Mouthe and the caves of Dordogne. Then Bohmers moved on to Les Trois-Frères.
Bayeux Tapestry
The Ahnenerbe took great interest in the 900-year-old Bayeux Tapestry. In June 1941, its staff oversaw the transport of the tapestry from its home in Bayeux Cathedral to an abbey at Juaye-Mondaye, and finally to the Château de Sourches. In August 1944, after Paris was liberated by the Allies, two members of the SS were dispatched to Paris to retrieve the tapestry, which had been moved into the basement of the Louvre. Contrary to Himmler's orders, however, they chose not to attempt to enter the Louvre, most likely because of the strong presence of the French Resistance in the historic area.
Tibet
In 1937, Himmler decided that he could increase the Ahnenerbe's visibility by investigating Hans F. K. Günther’s claims that early Aryans had conquered much of Asia, including attacks against China and Japan in approximately 2000 BC, and that Gautama Buddha was himself an Aryan offshoot of the Nordic race. Walther Wüst later expanded on this theory, stating in a public speech that Adolf Hitler's ideology corresponded with that of the Buddha, since the two shared a common heritage. However, according to contemporary research Hitler himself was not interested in Buddhism or Tibet.
Poland
After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, Wolfram Sievers wrote to Himmler stressing the need to appropriate exhibits from numerous museums. Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) Franz Six oversaw , who was commanding a small team that entered Kraków to obtain the 15th-century Veit Stoss altar. Because the Poles had foreseen the German interest in the altar, they had disassembled it into 32 pieces, which were shipped to different locations, but Paulsen located each piece, and on October 14, 1939, he returned to Berlin with the altar in three small trucks and had it stored in the locked treasury of the Reichsbank. After conferring with Hitler, who had not initially been told of the operation to capture it, it was decided to send the altar to an underground vault in Nuremberg, for safety.
Reinhard Heydrich, then head of RSHA, sent Paulsen back to Kraków in order to seize additional museum collections, but Göring had already sent a team of his own men, commanded by Kajetan Mühlmann under the supervision of Dagobert Frey, to loot the museums. Mühlmann agreed to let Paulsen take items of scholarly interest back to the Ahnenerbe, while keeping artworks for Göring. During the looting, Hans Frank, the head of the German General Government in occupied Poland, issued an order dated November 22, 1939 prohibiting the “unapproved export” of Polish items. Paulsen obeyed the order, but his colleague Hans Schleif arranged for five freightcars of loot from the Warsaw Archaeological Museum to be shipped to Poznań, which was outside Frank's control. In return, Schleif was appointed as a trustee for Wartheland. Paulsen later tried to take credit for the freightcars' contents in his report to RuSHA, but was reassigned.
Eduard Paul Tratz of the Ahnenerbe also removed some exhibits from the State Zoological Museum in Warsaw to the Haus der Natur, the museum in Salzburg of which he was founder and director.
Crimea
After the German Army conquered the Crimea in early July 1942, Himmler sent Herbert Jankuhn, as well as and Baron Wolf von Seefeld, to the region in search of artifacts to follow up the recent display of the Kerch “Gothic crown of the Crimea” in Berlin.
Jankuhn met with senior officers of 11, part of , while waiting at the field headquarters of the 5th SS Panzer Division. Commander Otto Ohlendorf gave Jankuhn information about the Crimean museums. Traveling with the 5th SS Panzer, Jankuhn's team eventually reached Maykop, where they received a message from Sievers that Himmler wanted an investigation of Mangup Kale, an ancient mountain fortress. Jankuhn sent Kersten to follow up on Mangup Kale, while the rest of the team continued trying to secure artifacts that had not already been taken by the Red Army. 11b's commander Werner Braune aided the team.
Jankuhn was ultimately unable to find Gothic artifacts denoting a German ancestry, even after intelligence about a shipment of 72 crates of artifacts shipped to a medical warehouse. The area had been ravaged by the time the team arrived and only 20 crates remained, but they contained Greek and stone-age artifacts, rather than Gothic.
Ukraine
In June 1943, 27-year-old SS-Untersturmführer Heinz Brücher, who held a PhD from Tübingen in botany, was tasked with an expedition to Ukraine and Crimea. Konrad von Rauch and an interpreter identified as Steinbrecher were also involved in the expedition.
In February 1945, Brücher was ordered to destroy the Ahnenerbe's 18 active research facilities to avoid their capture by advancing Soviet forces. He refused, and after the war continued his work as a botanist in Argentina and Trinidad.
Cancelled expeditions
Bolivia
After winning in a writing contest, Edmund Kiss traveled to Bolivia in 1928 to study the ruins of temples in the Andes. He claimed that their apparent similarity to ancient European structures indicated that they had been designed by Nordic migrants millions of years earlier. He also claimed that his findings supported the World Ice Theory, which held that the universe originated from a cataclysmic clash between gigantic balls of ice and glowing mass. Arthur Posnansky had been studying a local site called Tiwanaku, which he also believed supported the theory.
After contacting Posnansky, Kiss approached Wüst for help planning an expedition to excavate Tiwanaku and a nearby site, Siminake. The team would consist of 20 scientists, who would excavate for a year and also explore Lake Titicaca, and take aerial photographs of ancient Incan roads they believed had Nordic roots. By late August 1939, the expedition was nearly set to embark, but the invasion of Poland caused the expedition to be postponed indefinitely.
Iran
In 1938, the Ahnenerbe's president, Walther Wüst, proposed a trip to Iran to study the Behistun Inscription, which had been created by order of the Achaemenid Shah Darius I, who had declared himself to have been of Aryan origin in his inscriptions. The inscriptions were recorded atop steep cliffs using scaffolding that was removed after the inscriptions were made. Unable to afford the cost of erecting new scaffolds, Wüst proposed that he, his wife, an amanuensis, an Iranian student, a photographer and an experienced mountaineer be sent with a balloon-mounted camera. The onset of the war, however, saw the trip postponed indefinitely.
Canary Islands
Early travelers to the Canary Islands had described the Guanche natives as having golden-blond hair and white skin, and mummies had been found with blond tresses—facts which Wirth believed indicated that the islands had once been inhabited by Nordics. His colleague Otto Huth proposed an autumn of 1939 expedition to study the ancient islanders’ racial origins, artifacts and religious rites. At the time, the Canary Islands were part of Francisco Franco’s fascist Spanish State (). Because Franco refused to side with the Axis when the war started, however, the trip was cancelled.
Iceland
Bruno Schweizer had already traveled to Iceland three times in 1938 when he proposed an Ahnenerbe expedition with seven others to the country in order to learn about their ancient farming practices and architecture, record folksongs and dances, and also collect soil samples for pollen analysis.
The first setback for the expedition was the ridicule of the Scandinavian press, publishing stories in February 1939 claiming the expedition was based on false ideas about Icelandic heritage and sought old church records that did not even exist. An enraged Himmler publicly shut down the trip, but after calming down he allowed the planning of the trip to be secretly continued. The final setback occurred when Himmler's personal staff was unable to get enough Icelandic crowns—Iceland's currency. Not being able to quickly solve this problem, the trip was rescheduled for the summer of 1940. In May 1940, the British invaded neutral Iceland, but when the war had started the expedition had already been shelved.
In 1940, following the British occupation of Iceland, the Ahnenerbe-funded Bruno Kress, a German researcher who was in the country at the time, was rounded up along with other German nationals present on the island. Kress was interned in Ramsey on the Isle of Man, but was allowed to correspond with Sievers through letters. Kress's Grammar of Icelandic was eventually published in East Germany in 1955. Kress later worked for the East German (Stasi).
Other Ahnenerbe activities
Master Plan East
After being appointed Commissioner for the Strengthening of the German Race, Himmler set to work with Konrad Meyer on developing a plan for three large German colonies in the eastern occupied territories. Leningrad, northern Poland and the Crimea would be the focal points of these colonies intended to spread the Aryan race. The Crimean colony was called Gotengau, "Goth district", in honor of the Crimean Goths who had settled there and were believed to be Aryan ancestors of the Germans.
Himmler estimated that Aryanization of the region would take twenty years, first expelling all the undesirable populations, then re-distributing the territory to appropriate Aryan populations. In addition to changing the demographics of the region, Himmler also intended to plant oak and beech trees to replicate traditional German forests, as well as plant new crops brought back from Tibet. To achieve the latter end, Himmler ordered a new institution set up by the Ahnenerbe and headed by Schäfer. A station was then set up near the Austrian town of Graz where Schäfer set to work with seven other scientists to develop new crops for the Reich.
The final piece of the puzzle fell into place after Hitler read a work by Alfred Frauenfeld which suggested resettling inhabitants of South Tyrol, believed by some to be descendants of the Goths, to Crimea. In 1939 the South Tyroleans were ordered by Hitler and Benito Mussolini to vote on whether they wanted to remain in Italy and accept assimilation or emigrate to Germany. Over 80% chose the latter (for details see South Tyrol Option Agreement). Himmler presented the to Hitler and received approval in July 1942.
Full implementation of the plan was not feasible because of the war, but a small colony was founded around Himmler's field headquarters at Hegewald, near Kiev. Starting on October 10, 1942, Himmler's troops deported 10,623 Ukrainians from the area in cattle cars before bringing in trains of ethnic Germans () from northern Ukraine. The SS authorities gave families supplies as well as land, but also informed them of quotas of food they would be required to produce for the SS.
Failed seizure of Tacitus manuscript
The Ahnenerbe had tried to gain possession of the Codex Aesinas, a famous medieval copy of Tacitus' Germania. Although Mussolini had originally promised it as a gift in 1936, it remained in the possession of the Count Aurelio Baldeschi Guglielmi Balleani outside Ancona, from where the Ahnenerbe tried to obtain it after Mussolini was deposed.
Headquarters relocation
On July 29, 1943, the Royal Air Force's firebombing of Hamburg led Himmler to order the immediate evacuation of the main Ahnenerbe headquarters in Berlin. The extensive library was moved to Schloss Oberkirchberg near Ulm while the staff was moved to the tiny village of Waischenfeld near Bayreuth, Bavaria. The building selected was the 17th century . While much of the staff was not ecstatic about the primitive conditions, Sievers seemed to have embraced the isolation.
Financing
Financially, the Ahnenerbe was separate from the Nazi Party treasury and had to find funding from other sources including membership dues and donations. After 1938, it received funds from the . In addition, a foundation () was established, set up with funds from business leaders. One of the largest donations, approximately , came from Deutsche Bank boardmember Emil Georg von Stauß associates, including BMW and Daimler-Benz. The foundation also received royalties from patents partially held by the SS (see below). During the war, Ahnenerbe also received money from other SS departments and profited from the of Jewish property—its headquarters in Dahlem had been purchased at half its market value. In 1940, another estate in Munich was added.
In 1936, the SS formed a joint company with Anton Loibl, a machinist and driving instructor. The SS had heard about reflector pedals for bicycles, that Loibl and others had been developing. Assuring that Loibl got the patent himself, Himmler then used his political weight to ensure the passing of a 1939 law requiring the use of the new reflective pedals—of which the Ahnenerbe received a share of the profits, in 1938.
Medical experiments
The ("Institute for Military Scientific Research"), which conducted extensive medical experiments using human subjects, became attached to the Ahnenerbe during World War II. It was managed by Wolfram Sievers. Sievers had founded the organization on the orders of Himmler, who appointed him director with two divisions headed by Sigmund Rascher and August Hirt, and funded by the Waffen-SS.
Dachau
Sigmund Rascher was tasked with helping the Luftwaffe determine what was safe for their pilots—because aircraft were being built to fly higher than ever before. He applied for and received permission from Himmler to requisition camp prisoners to place in vacuum chambers to simulate the high altitude conditions that pilots might face.
Rascher was also tasked with discovering how long German airmen would be able to survive if shot down above freezing water. His victims were forced to remain out of doors naked in freezing weather for up to 14 hours, or kept in a tank of icewater for 3 hours, their pulse and internal temperature measured through a series of electrodes. Warming of the victim was then attempted by different methods, most usually and successfully by immersion in very hot water, and also less conventional methods such as placing the subject in bed with women who would try to sexually stimulate him, a method suggested by Himmler.
Rascher experimented with the effects of Polygal, a substance made from beets and apple pectin, on coagulating blood flow to help with gunshot wounds. Subjects were given a Polygal tablet, and shot through the neck or chest, or their limbs amputated without anaesthesia. Rascher published an article on his experience of using Polygal, without detailing the nature of the human trials, and also set up a company to manufacture the substance, staffed by prisoners.
Similar experiments were conducted from July to September 1944, as the Ahnenerbe provided space and materials to doctors at Dachau concentration camp to undertake “seawater experiments”, chiefly through Sievers. Sievers is known to have visited Dachau on July 20, to speak with Ploetner and the non-Ahnenerbe Wilhelm Beiglboeck, who ultimately carried out the experiments.
Skulls
Walter Greite rose to leadership of the Ahnenerbe's Applied Nature Studies division in January 1939, and began taking detailed measurements of 2,000 Jews at the Vienna emigration office—but scientists were unable to use the data. On December 10, 1941, Bruno Beger met with Sievers and convinced him of the need for 120 Jewish skulls. During the later Nuremberg Trials, Friedrich Hielscher testified that Sievers had initially been repulsed at the idea of expanding the Ahnenerbe to human experimentation, and that he had “no desire whatsoever to participate in these.”
Jewish skeleton collection: Beger collaborated with August Hirt, of the Reich University of Strassburg, in creating a Jewish skeleton collection for research. The bodies of 86 Jewish men and women were ultimately collected and macerated.
Post-World War II
Trials
Wolfram Sievers: In Waischenfeld American troops captured a slew of documents that would be used in the case against Sievers which would be a part of the Doctors' Trial. Sievers was charged for aiding in the Jewish skull collection and human medical experiments at Dachau and Natzweiler. In his defense, Sievers claimed he had helped a resistance group since 1929, which was supported by testimony from Friedrich Hielscher on April 15, 1947. Sievers was nevertheless found guilty on all four counts on August 21, 1947, and sentenced to death. He was hanged on June 2, 1948, at Landsberg Prison.
Richard Walther Darré: One of the founders of the Ahnenerbe, Darré was tried in the Ministries Trial. He received seven years imprisonment after being found not guilty on more serious charges.
Edmund Kiss: His Bolivia trip having been cancelled, Kiss served in the armed forces the rest of the war, taking command of SS men at Wolfschanze near the end. He was interned in the Darmstadt camp after the war, but was released in June 1947 due to severe diabetes. His de-Nazification classification was as a “major offender”. This allowed him to only take a manual labor job. Following this decision, Kiss hired a lawyer to protest this decision, a major component of his case being he had never been a member of the Nazi Party. After somewhat renouncing his past, Kiss was reclassified as a Mitläufer in 1948 and fined 501 DM.
Walther Wüst: Although the president of the Ahnenerbe from 1937 until the end of the war, Wüst's claims that he was unaware of any medical experiments were acknowledged, and in 1950 he was classified as a Mitläufer and released, returning to the University of Munich as a professor-in-reserve.
Bruno Beger: In February 1948, Beger was classified as "exonerated" by a denazification tribunal unaware of his role in the skeleton collection. In 1960, an investigation into the collection began in Ludwigsburg, and Beger was taken into custody on March 30, 1960. He was released four months later, but the investigation continued until coming to trial on October 27, 1970. Beger claimed that he was unaware the Auschwitz prisoners he measured were to be killed. While two others indicted in the trial were released, Beger was convicted on April 6, 1971, and sentenced to three years in prison for being an accomplice in the murder of 86 Jews. Neither of his colleagues with whom he was tried, Hans Fleischhacker and Wolf-Dietrich Wolff, was convicted.
Legacy
Academic study
During the 20th century, little scholarly research into the Ahnenerbe took place. Many scholars had likely been dissuaded from exploring the subject because ex-Ahnenerbe members held prominent academic positions in West Germany and did not want younger historians or archaeologists investigating their links with the SS. The main scholar to explore the subject in this period was a Canadian historian, Michael Kater, who conducted his research while in Germany. As the University of Heidelberg sought to publish Kater's thesis on the subject in 1966, Walther Wüst unsuccessfully tried to legally prevent it from doing so. Kater's research was then published in 1974 as Das "Ahnenerbe" der SS 1935–1945.
Following German unification in 1990, Achim Leube began an examination of the surviving historical evidence on the Ahnenerbe, much of which had been based in West Germany. In November 1998, Leube oversaw an international academic conference in Berlin on the Nazis' relationship with prehistory.
Influence in pseudo-archaeology
Many of the ideas inherited or developed by the Ahnenerbe remain influential. Canadian author Heather Pringle has particularly drawn attention to the influence of Edmund Kiss' various "crackpot theories" concerning such matters as the World Ice Theory and the origins of Tiwanaku upon subsequent writers such as H.S. Bellamy, Denis Saurat and, later, Graham Hancock.
In popular culture
Much misinformation about the Ahnenerbe has circulated, due in part to adaptations of the group in fiction, and historically dubious conspiracy theories that sometimes confuse the Ahnenerbe with the roughly contemporaneous Thule Society, or the historically unverified Vril society.
The Ahnenerbe formed the basis for the depiction in the Indiana Jones franchise of Nazis searching for religious artifacts.
The antagonist of the 2019 animated film, Lupin III: The First is part of a fictional branch of the Ahnenerbe.
Fictional SS Paranormal Division from Return to Castle Wolfenstein video game is based on Ahnenerbe.
See also
Deutsche Physik and Deutsche Mathematik
List of Nazi Party organizations
List of Ahnenerbe institutes
Nazi mysticism
Reich Research Council
Thule Society
Kokugaku, a similar, if earlier, project to recapture legendary heritage in Japan
References
Bibliography
Цибулькін В. В., Лисюк І. П. СС-Аненербе: розсекречені файли. – К. – Хмельницький: Поділля, 2010. – 288 с. (Tsibulkin V.V., Lysyuk I.P. (2010). SS-Anenerbe: declassified files. - K. - (in Ukrainian). Khmelnytskyi: Podillia)
External links
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Nazi SS
Occultism in Nazism
Nazi culture
Nazi Party organizations
Pseudoarchaeology
Pseudohistory
Organizations established in 1935
Organizations disestablished in 1945
1935 establishments in Germany
Heinrich Himmler
1945 disestablishments in Germany
Science in Nazi Germany |
423060 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITV2 | ITV2 | ITV2 is a British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998. For a number of years, it had the largest audience share after the five analogue terrestrial stations, a claim now held by its sister service ITV3 both of which are freely available to a majority of households.
The channel is primarily aimed at the 16/18–34 age group, just like BBC Three, E4 and Sky Max and is known for American programming such as adult animations Family Guy, American Dad! and Bob's Burgers, repeats of recently aired episodes of soap operas and other entertainment programming from ITV such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Family Fortunes and Catchphrase; 60-second entertainment news bulletin FYI Daily, which airs in-between films; original comedy such as Celebrity Juice and Plebs, and reality formats such as Big Brother and Love Island.
Broadcasting
Satellite
Freesat UK: Channel 113 (HD) & Channel 114 (+1)
Sky UK: Channel 118 (SD/HD), Channel 218 (+1) & Channel 816 (HD/SD)
Terrestrial
Freeview UK: Channel 6 (SD) & Channel 29 (+1)
Cable
Virgin Media: Channel 115 (HD), Channel 315 (+1)
History
Prior to the launch of Channel 4 in 1982, the name "ITV2" had sometimes been used to refer informally to an envisioned second commercial network in the UK. However, the name resurfaced in the late 1990s for very different reasons. The launch of digital terrestrial television services in the UK saw each existing analogue terrestrial broadcaster given a slice of bandwidth with which to carry their existing service after analogue switch-off with space left over for new channels. Whilst strictly speaking this space belonged to each regional contractor for use within their own region, ITV had undergone a series of buy-outs earlier on in the decade; the three players operating the majority of the network, Granada, Carlton, and United News & Media, jointly launched ITV2 in 1998 to be broadcast to most of the country as a uniform service. Whilst free-to-air, it was marketed alongside their own subscription based ONdigital platform. Other ITV licensees, SMG, UTV and GMTV launched their own services in the space (see below).
ITV2 launched at 7:00pm on 7 December 1998. The first programme was an hour-long introductory programme called It Takes Two presented by Gabby Logan and Vinnie Jones. Billie Piper was heavily involved in the channel's promotion at launch, with an updated version of the 1966 song It Takes Two sung by her used as the theme song for the launch programme and featured in the original promos for the channel.
While ITV2 is now an entertainment channel aimed to a younger audience, at its launch in 1998 it was a mixed genre channel and featured some programmes aimed at much older audiences than what the channel broadcasts currently.
Much of the original content in its launch schedule was current affairs related programming fronted by ITV newscasters. Katie Derham presented a weekly media analysis programme called Wide Angle, John Suchet fronted a weekly current affairs discussion programme called Who, What, Why, and Trevor McDonald presented an interview series, Trevor McDonald Meets.... These three programmes all ran on Sunday nights.
There were repeats of popular ITV programmes including Midsomer Murders, Inspector Morse, A Touch of Frost, Heartbeat, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Gladiators, Don't Try This at Home, Trisha and My Wonderful Life, American acquisitions such as Judge Judy, The Jerry Springer Show, The Late Show with David Letterman and Maggie Winters, omnibus editions of ITV soaps Emmerdale, Coronation Street, The Bill and Home and Away and a Saturday football results service called Football First, which was promoted to ITV1 in 2001 (whilst maintaining an ITV2 slot) and rebranded as The Goal Rush. Other launch programmes included youth magazine show Bedrock and Soap Fever which taken a look at the UK's major television soap operas. There was also live coverage of the UEFA Champions League among a range of other sports coverage and a CITV block was featured.
Many of the older skewing drama series were dropped after the launch of ITV3 in 2004, and the launch of ITV4 the year later saw ITV2 ditch sports coverage except on certain occasions as overspill.
In June 2004, ITV plc announced that they were going to double the channel's programme budget, and would add more American series and movies. On 1 November 2004, in an attempt to launch ITV3 on Sky, ITV2 moved from 175 to 118 on Sky after ITV plc bought GSkyB for £10 million. As a result, Plus was permanently closed down, with its EPG slot taken by ITV3.
On 10 October 2006, ITV announced the launch of a one-hour timeshift service of ITV2, ITV2+1. The channel launched on 30 October 2006.
ITV2 and its one-hour timeshift channel began broadcasting 24 hours a day on 17 March 2008. The hours formerly held by GMTV2 were moved to ITV4.
From 11 January 2011, ITV2 +1 on the Freeview platform has changed its broadcasting hours to until On 1 June 2011, an additional hour was added in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, allowing ITV2 +1 to start at On 2 August 2011, ITV2 +1 began to broadcast 24 hours a day on Freeview across the UK, using an eleventh stream created on mux A.
As part of the changes, ITV2 +1 swapped slots on Sky's electronic programme guide with Men & Motors, resulting in the timeshift channel making a significant jump from channel 184 to 131. It is now Sky 218.
GMTV2 programming moved from ITV2 to ITV4. The strand continued to be simulcast on the CITV channel.
On 20 August 2008, ITV2 unveiled a new look. The logo was given a 3D look, with six new idents.
ITV2 was launched on UPC Ireland in the Republic of Ireland on 4 January 2010, marking the first time the channel has been officially available in the country. The channel had already been (and remains) available to Irish viewers on free-to-air satellite for some time, however it is still not listed in the Sky electronic programme guide. On 1 April 2011, ITV2 was removed from UPC Ireland along with ITV3 and ITV4 due to the expiry of a carriage agreement between UPC and ITV. UPC Ireland claim that ITV is not in a position to renegotiate the deal because ITV had struck a deal with another channel provider to provide it with exclusive rights to air certain content from the channels. Conversely, UPC Ireland also claims to have been in discussions right up to the last moment to continue broadcasting the channels. ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 were restored to the UPC Ireland line-up on 20 December 2011. Virgin Media One and its sister channel Virgin Media Two already hold carriage agreement to air certain ITV content within the Republic of Ireland, alternatively UTV is available within the Republic. ITV2 is available along with ITV3 and ITV4 within Switzerland, all three channels are available on SwisscomTV and UPC Cablecom. ITV2 is registered to broadcast within the European Union/EEA through ALIA in Luxembourg.
ITV2 was made available on Freeview in the Channel Islands on 29 February 2012, a few months after ITV plc bought Channel Television from Yattendon Group plc.
In November 2021, the channel moved into the true-crime genre with The Social Media Murders, a three-part documentary series with a different case examined every night, over three days. A second series debuted on ITVX in March 2023 with repeats on ITV1.
In March 2022, ITV announced that their new reality game show Loaded in Paradise, which sees teams in Greece trying to win a chance of spending the prize pot of 50,000 euros, and Tell Me Everything, a mental health themed drama series, would be two of the first ITV2 shows to debut on their new streaming service ITVX before getting terrestrial slots, which eventually came in April 2023 and June 2023 respectively.
In June 2022, ITV2 picked up a number of American series for daytimes including re-runs of One Tree Hill, Hart of Dixie and The O.C. as well as the sports drama All American, which had replaced Bob's Burgers in its timeslot. However, All American was unsuccessful in its 7pm slot and so after a month of consistently low ratings, it was moved mid-season to around 2am each morning, with Bob's Burgers returning on 4 July 2022. Despite this incident, in January 2023, ITV2 would later stop airing Bob's Burgers altogether and replace it with Superstore, a programme which ITV2 used to air until September 2022 when it got replaced by Secret Crush. After another 3 months of low ratings, this decision was eventually reversed, and Bob's Burgers returned to ITV2 for a second time in April 2023.
In August 2022, the channel axed its Katherine Ryan presented dating show Ready To Mingle after some episodes in the first series received ratings as low as 60,000 viewers, and picked up the rights to the Big Brother format, launching a teaser trailer for its return to British TV during the Love Island final.
On 7 October 2022, the ITV2 Twitter and YouTube accounts were replaced by ITVX accounts in order to streamline the ITV channels for an upcoming rebrand. This came into place on 15 November 2022.
In March 2023, it was announced that ITV would be closing its children's channel CITV after 17 years (and 40 years as a strand on ITV1) later in the year and moving its content to ITVX. In addition to this, it was also announced that some children's programmes would be shown on ITV2 during an early morning slot. The block launched on 2 September 2023 following the CITV Channel's closure and runs between 5:00 and 9:00 retaining the channel's branding.
Most watched programmes
The following is a list of the six most watched shows on ITV2, based on Live +28 data supplied by BARB up to 10 January 2019.
Before Love Islands successful return, the highest rated show on the channel was episode 7.01 of Celebrity Juice, starring Phillip Schofield, on 9 February 2012.
Awards
ITV2 won Channel of the Year at the Broadcast Digital Awards in 2007 and again in 2013. It was also named Non-Terrestrial Channel of the Year at the Edinburgh International Television Festival in 2007.
Criticisms
In 2014, the channel was subject to a controversy about one of its shows. Dapper Laughs: On the Pull was created by Vine comedian Daniel "Dapper Laughs" O'Reilly. The show was criticized for promoting violence against women and dubbed by one paper as "a rapist's almanac". Due to these criticisms, an online petition for the show's cancellation reaching 68,210 signatures and a sexist joke glorifying rape said by O'Reilly during one of his live shows, ITV chose not to commission a second series. A subsequent live tour was also cancelled. In the wake of the scandal, Stewart Lee criticized O'Reilly's Newsnight apology and said "what kind of person gets banned from ITV2? That's like being banned from a pub that's on fire."
In a 2009 episode of Screenwipe, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker criticized the channel's programming for being nihilistic and called it "a monument to cultural death" and "frighteningly meaningless."
Subsidiary channels
ITV2 +1
The timeshift channel ITV2 +1 launched 30 October 2006, along with its sister channel, ITV3 +1. It was allocated channel number 211 on Sky. On 6 May 2008 it was announced that ITV2 +1 would swap with Men & Motors on the Sky EPG making a jump from 184 to 131. This channel is often unable to broadcast certain programmes "for legal reasons", but the programme in question might still be listed on the EPG.
ITV2 +1 currently resides on Sky channel 218, and is also available on Freeview channel 28, Freesat channel 114 and Virgin TV channel 315.
ITV2 HDITV2 HD, a high-definition simulcast of ITV2, launched on 7 October 2010 on Sky channel 225. The channel was initially available through Sky's pay subscription service in a non-exclusive deal, before being added to Virgin Media's service on 14 March 2013. Original HD programming includes entertainment shows, Britain's Got More Talent, The Xtra Factor and I'm a Celebrity: Extra Camp; original drama such as the third and fourth series of Secret Diary of a Call Girl; and acquired content including The Vampire Diaries and Gossip Girl and a range of movies.
On 1 November 2022, in the lead up to the launch of ITVX, the encryption was dropped on ITV2 HD at around 11am that day and so became free to air. Later that day, Freesat data had been added to ITV2 HD, indicating that the channel will be made available on Freesat soon. On 8 November 2022 the HD version replaced the SD version on Freesat channel 113.
Former local variants
S2 S2 was a television station broadcast throughout the Scottish and Grampian ITV regions by SMG plc, the holder of the Scottish and Grampian region ITV franchises. S2, which aired on the digital terrestrial platform, was launched 30 April 1999 and closed just over two years later – as part of a deal with ITV Digital – on 27 July 2001.
By the end of its life, it had lost nearly all of its Scottish programmes and mainly simulcast ITV2, but covered the ITV2 graphic with an opaque S2 graphic.
UTV2 UTV2 was a television station broadcast by Ulster Television on Digital Terrestrial Television in Northern Ireland. It was launched in 1999 as TV You. The programming consisted primarily of simulcasts with the ITV2 station shown in England, Wales and the Scottish Borders, although they did also use archive broadcasts from UTV. UTV2 closed on 22 January 2002 following a deal with ITV Digital and was replaced by the national variant.
Branding
When the channel launched, the logo was very similar in style to the ITV logo at the time and ITV were worried the channel looked just like an extension of ITV and didn't offer anything new. It was soon after this that the channel received a complete overhaul along with the other ITV channels in 2006.
The channel received a new lime green logo, chosen as ITV thought it had a young fresh feel to it. The channel also received six new idents which all had names beginning with 'Too' to relate to the 2 in the channel's name. They were called; "Too Fast", "Too Hot", "Too Cold, "Too Expensive", "Too Glamorous" and "Too Loud". Each of the idents were made up of a mix of shades of green to match the channel's logo.
In 2008, the channel received another new look. The green logo was kept but edited. The channel now had a new 3D logo to try to make the channel look more modern and appealing to a younger audience.
During Newcastle United's run in the 2004–05 UEFA Cup, the channel was rebranded as ITV Toon''' on matchdays, referring to the club's nickname the Toon. The channel's yellow and blue idents changed to black and white, to match the club's colours.
In line with the corporate rebranding of ITV, ITV2 received a new look on 14 January 2013. The channel's slogan became "the home of infectious entertainment", and received a "hot red" version of the logo and red on-screen identity including new idents.
ITV2 presentation was given a refresh on 12 August 2015, with new branding, idents, the introduction of gif style bite-sized promos, and a re-boot of the channel's social feeds, spanning YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram along with the launch of new ITV2 channels on Snapchat and Tumblr. As part of the refresh, the logo kept its previous state but was changed colour from hot red to turquoise.
ITV2 was given another rebrand on 15 November 2022, with new branding and idents along with the launch of the streaming service ITVX. As part of the refresh, the logo is now coloured pink and uses idents that are cross-used across ITV1, ITV3, ITV4, and ITVBe with different views which reflect the channel's image and programming output.
Former logos
Programming
Current programming
Programmes getting their first-run on a British TV channel:
All American (2022–present)
American Dad! (2016–present)
Bad Boy Chiller Crew (2021–present)
Big Brother (2023–present; formerly on Channel 4 and Channel 5)
Big Brother: Late & Live (2023-present)
Crossing Swords (2020–present)
Dress To Impress (2017–present)
Don't Hate the Playaz (2018–present)
The Emily Atack Show (2020–present)
Emergency Nurses: A&E Stories (2022–present)
Family Guy (2016–present; formerly on BBC Three)
Killer Camp (2019)ITV Highlights Christmas/Winter 2021/2022
Love Island (2015–present)
Love Island: Aftersun (2017–present)
Love Island: Unseen Bits (2019–present)
The Masked Singer US (2020–present, from season 2: Fox produced episodes only)
Peckham's Finest (2021–present)
The Social Media Murders (2021–present)
The Stand-Up Sketch Show (2019–present)
Supermarket Sweep (2019–present)
The Voice USA (2021–present)
Second-run programmes currently showing
Bob's Burgers (2021–present)
Chuck (2022–present)
Coronation Street (1998–present)
Dawson's Creek (2023–present)
Hart of Dixie (2022–present)
Hey Tracey (2019–2020)
Masked Singer UK (2021–present)
The O.C. (2022–present)
One Tree Hill (2022–present)
Release the Hounds (2013–2018)
Superstore (2018–present)Veronica Mars (2022–present) (seasons 1–3 only, season 4 is on Lionsgate+)
Current CITV programmes
On 2 September 2023, the CITV children's block moved to ITV2.
Former programmesThis list is incomplete. American Idol (seasons 1–11, 2002–2012)
America's Got Talent (2007–2012)
Big Rich Texas (2013–2014)
Bordertown (2016)
Britain's Got More Talent (2007–2019)
The Cabins (2021–2022)
Celebrity Juice (2008–2022)
The Cleveland Show (2016–2021)
The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2016–2022)
Dapper Laughs: On the Pull (2014)
Emmerdale (1998–2022)
Gossip Girl (2007–2012)
Holly & Fearne Go Dating (2007)
Home Alone With Joel Dommett (2020)
I'm a Celebrity: Extra Camp (2002–2019)
Jedward: Let Loose (2010)
The Jeremy Kyle Show (2005–2019)
Late Show with David Letterman Love Island USA (2020)
Love Island Australia (2020)
Nicola McLean: Studs and Stilettos (2009)
The Only Way Is Essex (2010–2014)
Paris Hilton's British Best Friend (2009)
Plebs (2013–2022)
Ready to Mingle (2021)
The Real Housewives Reality Bites (2015)
Streetmate (2007 series)
Timewasters (2017–2019)
The Vampire Diaries (2010–2017)
The Xtra Factor (2004–2016)
Two and a Half Men (2014–2021)
You've Been Framed! (2009–2022)
Take Me Out'' (2010–2019)
References
External links
1998 establishments in the United Kingdom
ITV television channels
Television channels and stations established in 1998
Television channels in the United Kingdom |
423081 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veterans%20Committee | Veterans Committee | The Veterans Committee is the popular name of various committees of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum that elect participants other than recently retired players.
Originally, it referenced the National Baseball Hall of Fame Committee to Consider Managers, Umpires, Executives and Long-Retired Players; a former voting committee of the Baseball Hall of Fame that provided an opportunity for Hall of Fame enshrinement to all individuals who are eligible for induction but ineligible for consideration by the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). The term "Veterans Committee" is taken from the body's former official name: National Baseball Hall of Fame Committee on Baseball Veterans, which first met in 1953.
The committee structure and voting process has undergone multiple changes, most recently in April 2022. Currently, baseball players and non-players (managers, executives, and umpires) considered by the committee are classed into two timeframes, the Contemporary Baseball Era (1980–present) and the Classic Baseball Era (before 1980). Voting is conducted annually in December, with any elected persons inducted into the Hall of Fame the following calendar year. Balloting currently rotates on an annual basis for nominees selected from one of three groups: players of the Contemporary Baseball Era, non-players of the Contemporary Baseball Era, and all persons of the Classic Baseball Era.
History
The Veterans Committee can be traced back to 1939 when Commissioner of Baseball Kenesaw Mountain Landis formed the Old-Timers Committee to consider players from the 19th century for induction to the Hall of Fame. In 1939, the committee selected five players. In 1944, shortly after Landis' death, the committee voted him into the Hall via a special election. Landis was the 28th person inducted to the Hall—over the next several years, the committee added 23 more: 10 in 1945, 11 in 1946, and 2 in 1949.
In 1953, the Veterans Committee met for the first time under the name Committee on Baseball Veterans. In its first voting, the 11-member committee elected six players to the Hall. Starting in 1955, they would meet to elect up to two players in odd-numbered years. In 1959, Lee Allen succeeded Ernest Lanigan as Hall of Fame historian. According to Bill James, Paul Kerr (president of the Hall of Fame from 1961 to 1978) would generally convince the committee to select players that Allen suggested to him, until Allen's death in 1969. In 1961, the Veterans Committee expanded from 11 to 12 members. In 1962, the Veterans Committee went back to annual elections to the Hall of Fame, with the continued mandate to elect up to two players a year. In 1971, the Veterans Committee made seven selections; partly in response to such a large class, the Veterans Committee was then limited to selecting two players and one non-player every year.
Frankie Frisch, a 1947 inductee to the Hall, was a major voice on the committee in the 1970s. Backed by former teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Bill Terry and sportswriters J. Roy Stockton and Fred Lieb, who had covered Frisch's teams, he managed to get five of his teammates elected to the Hall by the committee between 1970 and 1973: Jesse Haines, Dave Bancroft, Chick Hafey, Ross Youngs, and George Kelly. Additionally, in the three years after his death, two more teammates (Jim Bottomley and Freddie Lindstrom) were elected. After Frisch died and Terry left the committee, elections were normalized.
After the 1977 election, the Veterans Committee was limited to two selections overall per year. In 1978, membership increased to 15 members; five Hall of Famers, five owners and executives, and five sportswriters. The members would meet in Florida during spring training to elect a player or two every year. The Veterans Committee mandate of up to two players was increased briefly from 1995 to 2001. In these years, the committee could elect one extra player from the Negro leagues and one from the 19th century in addition to the two regular players.
Starting in 1995, the Veterans Committee met in closed sessions to elect as many as two executives, managers, umpires, and older major league players—the categories considered in all its meetings since 1953. By a new arrangement it separately considered candidates from the Negro leagues and from the 19th century with authority to select one from each of those, via two special ballots. The older players eligible were those with ten major league seasons beginning 1946 or earlier; those who received at least 100 votes from the BBWAA in some election up to 1992; and those who received at least 60% support in some election beginning 1993. Players on Major League Baseball's ineligible list cannot be elected. The committee can elect up to four people each year.
During much of its existence, the Veterans Committee consisted of 15 members selected by the Hall of Fame for defined terms. A six-man subcommittee of this group met as a screening committee to determine who would be on the ballot. The committee met annually to consider candidates in four separate categories: players, managers, umpires, and executives. The Veterans Committee met privately, and its ballots and voting results were generally not revealed prior to 2003. From the mid-1970s until 2001, the top candidate in each category was elected to the Hall of Fame if he earned at least 75% of the committee's votes.
The Board of Directors reformed the system radically with new rules enacted in August 2001. Formerly, 15 members were appointed to limited terms; the new Veterans Committee would comprise all living members of the Hall, plus recipients of the Spink and Frick awards to writers and broadcasters. In particular, the new members were 61 living Hall of Famers, 13 living recipients of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, 13 living recipients of the Ford C. Frick Award, and three members of the previous committee with terms that had not yet expired. Elections for players retired more than 20 years would be held every other year and elections for (managers, umpires and executives) would be held every fourth year. The first cycle for both categories would be in 2002 and 2003 for induction in 2003.
Revisions to the voting process
2001 revisions
In 2001, the Hall of Fame radically changed the composition and election procedures for the Veterans Committee, which was revised to consist of:
All living members of the Hall of Fame;
All living recipients of the Ford C. Frick Award for baseball broadcasters;
And all living recipients of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award for baseball writers.
All members of the former Veterans Committee remained active until the expiration of their terms. Only two were on the committee for the 2003 election, the first under the new election procedures. Only one of the former Veterans Committee members (John McHale) remained on the committee for the 2005 and 2007 elections, and his term expired immediately after the 2007 election.
The election procedures instituted in 2003 are listed below. The procedures were changed again in 2007. Rules, and portions thereof, that changed in 2007 are indicated in italics.
Elections for players would now be held every two years, starting in 2003.
Managers, umpires, and executives would be elected from a single composite ballot every four years, starting in 2003.
The Historical Overview Committee, a ten-member panel appointed by the secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, created an initial list of figures from whom both ballots would be created. At this point, the players' ballot consisted of 200 players.
Ballots were screened by two groups – a sixty-member panel drawn from the membership of the BBWAA, and a panel of six living Hall of Famers selected by the Hall of Fame Board. The Hall of Famer panel selected five players for the players' ballot, and the BBWAA panel selected twenty-five players for the players' ballot, as well as all candidates for the composite ballot.
The selections of the Hall of Famer and BBWAA panels were then merged, creating a single players' ballot. Players chosen on both ballots appeared only once on this ballot, which now contained a minimum of twenty-five and a maximum of thirty players.
The players' ballot and composite ballot (fifteen candidates) are made public before voting.
Balloting is held by mail, with a stated deadline.
The Veterans Committee vote is made public after voting.
All candidates who receive 75% or more of the vote are elected; election is no longer restricted to only the top vote-getter.
Every player with ten or more years of major-league experience who has not been active in the previous twenty years, and is not on Major League Baseball's ineligible list, is eligible for Veterans Committee consideration. In the past, players who did not receive a certain percentage of the votes on a BBWAA ballot were permanently ineligible for Hall of Fame consideration.
Using these procedures, no one was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 2003, 2005, or 2007.
2007 revisions
Following the 2007 elections, the makeup of the committee was again changed, and several procedures were also modified:
Changes affecting all elections
The Historical Overview Committee will continue to formulate the players and managers/umpires ballots, but it will now present a players' ballot of only twenty players and a managers/umpires ballot of only ten figures. The executives ballot, consisting of ten individuals, will be formulated by the voting body for that ballot.
Changes affecting player elections
The players ballot is now restricted to players whose careers began in 1943 or later.
Voting for the players ballot is now restricted to Hall of Fame members. Winners of the Frick and Spink Awards are considered "honorees" and are thus ineligible to vote on the main players ballot.
The list of those eligible for the players ballot will be separately reviewed by a six-member panel of Hall of Famers, which will select five players for the ballot.
Next, all living Hall of Famers are invited to a meeting at the Hall of Fame during induction weekend. The Hall of Famers who are present at this meeting will narrow the list to a final ballot of 10 players.
The final players ballot is sent to all living Hall of Famers, who can vote for as many as four individuals.
Pre-World War II players
Players whose careers began before 1943 are now considered every five years by a committee of twelve Hall of Famers, writers, and baseball historians, to be chosen by the Hall of Fame Board. The first election of pre-World War II players was conducted in 2009.
Changes affecting non-player elections
The composite ballot will be split into two separate ballots, one for managers and umpires and the other for executives.
Voting on the managers/umpires and executives ballots will now be conducted for induction in even-numbered years, starting with the class of 2008.
The voting body for the managers/umpires ballot will be a sixteen-member body of Hall of Famers, executives, and media veterans appointed by the Hall of Fame Board.
The voting body for the executives ballot will be a separate twelve-member body of Hall of Famers, executives, and media veterans appointed by the Hall of Fame Board.
Each ballot is presented to the applicable voting board. As is the case for the players' ballot, each voter can choose as many as four individuals.
The threshold for induction remained at 75% of all who voted on the appropriate ballot. In the first election held under the new rules, two managers and three executives were elected in December 2007 as part of the 2008 election process.
2010 revisions
The Hall announced a new Veterans Committee voting process on June 26, 2010, effective with the 2011 election process that began late in 2010. The two biggest changes are:
Managers, umpires, executives, and players will now be considered on a single ballot.
Living Hall of Fame members will no longer constitute a single electoral body. Instead, separate 16-member subcommittees will be created to vote on individuals from different eras of baseball.
Candidates were classified by the time-periods that cover their greatest contributions:
Pre-Integration Era (1871–1946)
Golden Era (1947–1972)
Expansion Era (1973 and later)
Candidates from each era were considered every third year, starting with the Expansion Era in the 2011 election (December 2010, 2013), followed by the Golden Era (December 2011, 2014) and then by the Pre-Integration Era (December 2012, 2015).
The existing Historical Overview Committee formulated each ballot for release in the October or November before the next planned induction ceremony. The Expansion Era ballot included 12 candidates, while the other two ballots included ten each. The Hall's Board of Directors selected 16-member committees for each era, made up of Hall of Famers, executives, baseball historians, and media members. Each committee convened at the Winter Meetings in December to consider and vote on candidates from its assigned era. As before, the threshold of induction remained at 75% of those voting.
2016 revisions
On July 23, 2016, the Hall of Fame announced changes to the Era Committee system. Highlighting these changes was a restructuring of the time-frames to be considered, with a much greater emphasis on modern eras. Additionally, those major league players, managers, umpires and executives who excelled before 1950, as well Negro leagues stars, would still be afforded an opportunity to have their careers reviewed, but with less frequency.
Separate 16-member subcommittees were defined to vote on individuals from different eras of baseball, with candidates still being classified by the time-periods that covered their greatest contributions:
Early Baseball (1871–1949)
Golden Days (1950–1969)
Modern Baseball (1970–1987)
Today's Game (1988–present)
The size of all committee ballots was set at 10 candidates. Whilst there was previously a one-year waiting period after elimination from annual BBWAA consideration, that waiting period was removed. The Today's Game and Modern Baseball committees were scheduled to convene twice every five years, the Golden Days committee once every five years, and the Early Baseball committee once every 10 years.
While meetings take place in December, voting was included with the induction class for the following calendar year (e.g. December 2016 committee balloting was part of 2017 Hall of Fame elections and induction).
The induction ceremony originally scheduled for July 26, 2020, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic; persons originally scheduled for induction in 2020 were inducted in 2021. Committee meetings originally scheduled for December 2020 (Golden Days and Early Baseball) were postponed for a year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Committee scheduling for 2022 and beyond is not presented here, as the structure of committees was further amended in April 2022.
The criteria for committee eligibility differed for players, managers, and executives:
Players: Must be retired for at least 15 years. This means that no player will be eligible for committee consideration until a minimum of 10 years after he first becomes eligible to appear on the BBWAA ballot, regardless of whether or not he appears on a ballot.
The Hall has not yet established a policy on the timing of eligibility for committee consideration for players who die while active or during the standard 5-year waiting period for BBWAA eligibility. In these instances, the standard waiting period for BBWAA eligibility of 5 years from retirement is shortened to 6 months from death.
Managers and umpires: Must have at least 10 years of service in that role, and either be (1) retired for at least 5 years or (2) at least age 65 and retired for 6 months.
Executives: Must be retired for at least 5 years, or be at least age 70. Executives who meet the age cutoff will be considered regardless of their positions in an organization or their currently active statuses. Previously, active executives 65 years or older were eligible for consideration.
2022 revisions
The Hall of Fame announced additional changes to its era committees on April 22, 2022, effective immediately. The multiple eras previously utilized were collapsed into just two eras: the Contemporary Baseball Era (1980–present) and the Classic Baseball Era (prior to 1980). An annual rotation of three ballots was also defined:
Contemporary Baseball Era players: balloting in December 2022 for the class of 2023
Contemporary Baseball Era non-players (managers, executives, and umpires): balloting in December 2023 for the class of 2024
Classic Baseball Era: balloting in December 2024 for the class of 2025
The rotation will then continue every three years. A one-year waiting period beyond potential BBWAA eligibility (which had been abolished in 2016) was reintroduced, thus restricting the committee to considering players retired for at least 16 seasons.
Potential future candidates
Contemporary Baseball Era Player Ballot (1980–present)
Players: Dwight Evans (on 2020 ballot w/ 8 votes), Don Mattingly (on 2018, 2020 & 2022 ballots w/ 8 votes), Dave Parker (on 2014, 2018 & 2020 w/ 7 votes ballots), Curt Schilling (on 2022 ballot w/ 7 votes), Lou Whitaker (on 2020 ballot w/ 6 votes), Dale Murphy (on 2018, 2020, & 2022 ballots w/ 6 votes), Albert Belle (on 2017, 2019 & 2022 ballots), Will Clark (on 2017 & 2019 ballots), Orel Hershiser (on 2017 & 2019 ballots), Barry Bonds (on 2022 ballot), Roger Clemens (on 2022 ballot), Rafael Palmeiro (on 2022 ballot), Joe Carter (on 2019 ballot), Mark McGwire (on 2017 ballot), Dan Quisenberry (on 2014 ballot), Ron Guidry (on 2011 ballot), Rick Aguilera, Edgardo Alfonzo, Moises Alou, Brady Anderson, Kevin Appier, Buddy Bell, Jay Bell, Dante Bichette, Bobby Bonilla, Bob Boone, Kevin Brown, Ellis Burks, Brett Butler, Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, Jack Clark, David Cone, Darren Daulton, Chili Davis, Carlos Delgado, Brian Downing, Tony Fernández, Cecil Fielder, Chuck Finley, Steve Finley, John Franco, Julio Franco, Gary Gaetti, Eric Gagne, Andrés Galarraga, Kirk Gibson, Juan González, Luis Gonzalez, Dwight Gooden, Mark Grace, Shawn Green, Ken Griffey Sr., Marquis Grissom, Pedro Guerrero, Tom Henke, Pat Hentgen, Keith Hernandez, Roberto Hernández, Charlie Hough, Doug Jones, Brian Jordan, Wally Joyner, David Justice, Jeff Kent, Jimmy Key, Chuck Knoblauch, Mark Langston, Ray Lankford, Carney Lansford, Al Leiter, Chet Lemon, Kenny Lofton, Javy Lopez, Fred Lynn, Dennis Martinez, Willie McGee, José Mesa, Jeff Montgomery, Randy Myers, Robb Nen, Hideo Nomo, John Olerud, Paul O'Neill, Lance Parrish, Tony Peña, Terry Pendleton, Troy Percival, Tony Phillips, Brad Radke, Willie Randolph, Jeff Reardon, Rick Reuschel, Dave Righetti, José Rijo, Bret Saberhagen, Tim Salmon, Steve Sax, Rubén Sierra, J.T. Snow, Sammy Sosa, Dave Stewart, Dave Stieb, Darryl Strawberry, Jim Sundberg, B. J. Surhoff, Rick Sutcliffe, Frank Tanana, Kent Tekulve, Garry Templeton, Fernando Valenzuela, Greg Vaughn, Mo Vaughn, Robin Ventura, Frank Viola, Tim Wallach, Bob Welch, David Wells, John Wetteland, Devon White, Frank White, Bernie Williams, Matt Williams, Willie Wilson and Todd Zeile.
Players Lance Berkman, Eric Chavez, Johnny Damon, Adam Dunn, Jim Edmonds, Nomar Garciaparra, Jason Giambi, Ryan Howard, Tim Hudson, Jason Kendall, Paul Konerko, Cliff Lee, Tim Lincecum, Justin Morneau, Joe Nathan, Magglio Ordóñez, Roy Oswalt, Jonathan Papelbon, Jorge Posada, Édgar Rentería, Johan Santana, Alfonso Soriano, Miguel Tejada, Mark Teixeira and Michael Young were ineligible for the 2023 Today's Game ballot as they had not been retired for 15 years.
Contemporary Baseball Era Non-Player Ballot (1980–present)
Managers: Lou Piniella (2017 w/ 7 votes & 2019 ballots w/ 11 votes), Davey Johnson (on 2008, 2010, 2017 & 2019 ballots), Tom Kelly (on 2010 ballot), Charlie Manuel (on 2019 ballot), Felipe Alou, Roger Craig, Jim Fregosi, Ron Gardenhire, Cito Gaston, Mike Hargrove, Art Howe, Dick Howser, Clint Hurdle, Jim Leyland, Joe Maddon, Jack McKeon, Johnny Oates, Mike Scioscia, Bobby Valentine, Ned Yost, Don Zimmer;
General managers: Dan Duquette, John Hart, Walt Jocketty, Hank Peters;
Owners: George Steinbrenner (on 2011, 2014, 2017 & 2019 ballots), George W. Bush, Peter O'Malley, Ted Turner;
Other executives: Bill White (on 2007 w/ 24 votes & 2010 ballots), Bobby Brown;
Umpires: Larry Barnett, Joe Brinkman, Derryl Cousins, Jerry Crawford, Bob Davidson, Jim Evans, Bruce Froemming, Rich Garcia, Jim Joyce, Randy Marsh, Tim McClelland, Larry McCoy, John McSherry, Ed Montague, Steve Palermo, Dave Phillips, Mike Reilly, Tim Welke, Harry Wendelstedt;
Other Contributors: Scott Boras
Managers Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy are ineligible until they retire from managing the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers, respectively, for at least 6 months. Manager Terry Francona won't be eligible as he will not have been retired for five years or have turned 65 and have been retired for 6 months by the time this committee meets to consider candidates for enshrinement. Executives Brian Cashman, Dave Dombrowski, and Andrew Friedman are ineligible until after the 2023 Today's Game ballot, as they will not have been retired for 5 years nor turned 70 until after that election. Sandy Alderson and Stan Kasten are ineligible until after the 2023 Today's Game ballot as they will not have been retired for 5 years. Dan O'Dowd is ineligible until after the 2023 Today's Game ballot as he will not have turned 70 years old by then as he was born in 1959.
Classic Baseball Era Composite Ballot (1871–1979)
Formerly eligible for the Modern Baseball Ballot (1970–1987)
Players: Luis Tiant (on 2007 w/ 15 votes, 2009 w/ 13 votes, 2012, 2015 & 2018 ballots), Al Oliver (on 2007 w/ 14 votes, 2009 w/ 9 votes & 2011 ballots), Mickey Lolich (on 2007 ballot w/ 8 votes), Steve Garvey (on 2011, 2014, 2018 & 2020 w/ 6 votes ballots), Thurman Munson (on 2007 w/ 6 votes & 2020 ballots), Sparky Lyle (on 2007 ballot w/ 6 votes), Bobby Bonds (on 2007 ballot w/ 1 vote), Tommy John (on 2011, 2014, 2018 & 2020 ballots), Dave Concepción (on 2014 ballot), Vida Blue (on 2011 ballot), Rusty Staub (on 2011 ballot), Dusty Baker, Sal Bando, Don Baylor, Mark Belanger, Larry Bowa, Bill Buckner, Jeff Burroughs, Bert Campaneris, César Cedeño, Ron Cey, Chris Chambliss, Cecil Cooper, José Cruz, Bucky Dent, Darrell Evans, George Foster, Oscar Gamble, Bobby Grich, Toby Harrah, John Hiller, Ken Holtzman, Burt Hooton, Willie Horton, Don Kessinger, Dave Kingman, Jerry Koosman, Davey Lopes, Greg Luzinski, Bill Madlock, Mike Marshall, Gary Matthews, Lee May, Tug McGraw, Hal McRae, Andy Messersmith, Rick Monday, Bobby Murcer, Graig Nettles, Joe Niekro, Amos Otis, Rico Petrocelli, Lou Piniella, Jerry Reuss, Mickey Rivers, Steve Rogers, Bill Russell, George Scott, Ken Singleton, Reggie Smith, Paul Splittorff, Gene Tenace, Mike Torrez, Bob Watson, & Wilbur Wood;
Managers: Billy Martin (on 2007 w/ 12 votes, 2008, 2010, 2011 & 2014 ballots), Gene Mauch (on 2008 & 2010 ballots), Ralph Houk, John McNamara, Chuck Tanner;
Executives: Harry Dalton (on 2007 ballot w/ 8 votes), John Fetzer (on 2008 ballot w/ 4 votes & 2010 ballot w/ 8 votes), Charlie O. Finley (on 2007 w/ 10 votes & 2012 ballots), Bob Howsam (on 2008 w/ 3 votes, 2010, & 2015 ballots), Ewing Kauffman (on 2008 w/ 5 votes & 2010 ballots w/ 6 votes), Gene Autry (on 2010 ballot), Charles Bronfman, Al Campanis, Frank Cashen, Chub Feeney, Paul Owens, Cedric Tallis;
Umpires: Marty Springstead, Lee Weyer.
Pete Rose has been ruled ineligible for future ballots due to his gambling on baseball when he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds. He has since sought to remove his name from baseball's "Permanently Ineligible" list so he can appear on the Modern Baseball Era Committee's ballot. The only way that will happen is if the Commissioner of Baseball removes his name from the "Permanently Ineligible" list.
Formerly eligible for the Golden Days Ballot (1950–1969)
Players: Dick Allen (on 2007 w/ 9 votes, 2009 w/ 7 votes, 2015 ballot w/ 11 votes, & 2022 ballot w/ 11 votes), Ken Boyer (on 2007 w/ 9 votes, 2012 ballot, 2015 ballot, & 2022 ballot w/ less than 4 votes), Rocky Colavito (on 2007 ballot w/ 5 votes), Curt Flood (on 2007 ballot w/ 14 votes), Roger Maris (on 2007 ballot w/ 15 votes, & 2022 ballot w/ less than 4 votes), Don Newcombe (on 2007 ballot w/ 17 votes), Billy Pierce (on 2015 ballot & 2022 ballot w/ less than 4 votes), Vada Pinson (on 2007 w/ 16 votes & 2009 ballots), Mickey Vernon (on 2007 ballot w/ 14 votes), Maury Wills (on 2007 w/ 33 votes, 2009 w/ 15 votes, 2015 ballot w/ 9 votes & 2022 ballot w/ less than 4 votes), Joe Adcock, Felipe Alou, Steve Barber, Lew Burdette, Norm Cash, Del Crandall, Mike Cuellar, Alvin Dark, Tommy Davis, Willie Davis, Murry Dickson, Del Ennis, Carl Erskine, Roy Face, Bill Freehan, Jim Fregosi, Bob Friend, Carl Furillo, Mike Garcia, Ned Garver, Jim Gilliam, Dick Groat, Elston Howard, Frank Howard, Larry Jackson, Jackie Jensen, Ted Kluszewski, Harvey Kuenn, Vern Law, Sherm Lollar, Eddie Lopat, Sal Maglie, Jim Maloney, Tim McCarver, Lindy McDaniel, Gil McDougald, Sam McDowell, Denny McLain, Roy McMillan, Dave McNally, Stu Miller, Claude Osteen, Andy Pafko, Milt Pappas, Ron Perranoski, Camilo Pascual, Jim Perry, Johnny Podres, Boog Powell, Vic Raschi, Bobby Richardson, Al Rosen, Roy Sievers, Curt Simmons, Mel Stottlemyre, Tony Taylor, Bobby Thomson, Jimmy Wynn & Eddie Yost;
Managers: Danny Murtaugh (on 2008 w/ 6 votes & 2010 ballots w/ 8 votes, & 2022 ballot w/ less than 4 votes), Paul Richards (on 2007 ballot w/ 10 votes), Fred Hutchinson, Bill Rigney, Birdie Tebbetts;
General Managers: Buzzie Bavasi (on 2007 w/ 30 votes, 2008 & 2012 ballots), John McHale (on 2008 & 2010 ballots), Gabe Paul (on 2007 w/ 10 votes, 2008 & 2010 ballots), Bing Devine, Frank Lane;
Owners: Gussie Busch (on 2007 ballot w/ 13 votes), Phil Wrigley (on 2007 ballot w/ 9 votes), Calvin Griffith
Umpires: Augie Donatelli, Tom Gorman, Jim Honochick, Hank Soar.
Formerly eligible for the Early Baseball Ballot (1871–1949)
Negro league personnel: John Donaldson (on 2006 Negro League Ballot & 2022 Ballot with 8 votes), Vic Harris (on 2022 ballot with 10 votes), Home Run Johnson (on 2006 Pre-Negro League Ballot & 2022 ballot w/ less than 4 votes), Dick Redding (on 2006 Pre-Negro League Ballot & 2022 ballot w/ less than 4 votes), George Scales (on 2006 Negro League Ballot & 2022 ballot w/ 4 votes), Newt Allen (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), John Beckwith (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), William Bell (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Chet Brewer (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Bill Byrd (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Rap Dixon (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Sammy T. Hughes (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Fats Jenkins (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Dick Lundy (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Oliver Marcell (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Dobie Moore (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Alejandro Oms (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Red Parnell (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Candy Jim Taylor (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), C.I. Taylor (on 2006 Negro League Ballot), Spot Poles (on 2006 Pre-Negro League Ballot), Bingo DeMoss, Bruce Petway, Ted Radcliffe;
Major league players: Bill Dahlen (on 2009, 2013 w/ 10 votes & 2016 ballots w/ 8 votes & 2022 ballot w/ less than 4 votes), Wes Ferrell (on 2007 w/ 7 votes, 2009 w/ 6 votes, 2013 & 2016 ballots), Sherry Magee (on 2009 ballot w/ 3 votes), Marty Marion (on 2007 w/ 11 votes, 2013 & 2016 ballots), Carl Mays (on 2007 w/ 6 votes & 2009 ballots), Lefty O'Doul (on 2007 ballot w/ 15 votes & 2022 ballot w/ 5 votes), Allie Reynolds (on 2009 w/ 8 votes, 2012, & 2022 ballots w/ 6 votes), Harry Stovey (on 2016 ballot w/ 8 votes), Cecil Travis (on 2007 ballot w/ 12 votes), Mickey Vernon (on 2009 ballot w/ 5 votes), Bucky Walters (on 2009 w/ 4 votes, 2013 & 2016 ballots), Frank McCormick (on 2016 ballot), Tony Mullane (on 2013 ballot), Vern Stephens (on 2009 ballot), Babe Adams, Dick Bartell, Ginger Beaumont, Charlie Bennett, Wally Berger, Tommy Bond, Bill Bradley, Harry Brecheen, Ted Breitenstein, Tommy Bridges, Pete Browning, Charlie Buffinton, George H. Burns, George J. Burns, Dolph Camilli, Bob Caruthers, George Case, Phil Cavarretta, Spud Chandler, Ben Chapman, Cupid Childs, Harlond Clift, Jack Coombs, Mort Cooper, Walker Cooper, Wilbur Cooper, Tommy Corcoran, Doc Cramer, Gavvy Cravath, Lave Cross, Jake Daubert, Hooks Dauss, Paul Derringer, Dom DiMaggio, Bill Donovan, Patsy Donovan, Larry Doyle, Jimmy Dykes, Bob Elliott, Bob Ferguson, Freddie Fitzsimmons, Art Fletcher, Larry French, Jack Glasscock, Kid Gleason, George Gore, Heinie Groh, Stan Hack, Mel Harder, Jeff Heath, Tommy Henrich, Babe Herman, Paul Hines, Dummy Hoy, Sam Jethroe, Bob Johnson, Charley Jones, Sad Sam Jones, Joe Judge, Willie Kamm, Charlie Keller, Ken Keltner, Silver King, Johnny Kling, Ed Konetchy, Ray Kremer, Joe Kuhel, Arlie Latham, Tommy Leach, Sam Leever, Dutch Leonard, Herman Long, Bobby Lowe, Dolf Luque, Firpo Marberry, Pepper Martin, Bobby Mathews, Jim McCormick, Deacon McGuire, Stuffy McInnis, Ed McKean, Cal McVey, Bob Meusel, Irish Meusel, Clyde Milan, Bing Miller, Terry Moore, Wally Moses, George Mullin, Johnny Murphy, Buddy Myer, Art Nehf, Bobo Newsom, Al Orth, Roger Peckinpaugh, Johnny Pesky, Fred Pfeffer, Deacon Phillippe, Jack Powell, Del Pratt, Jack Quinn, Ed Reulbach, Hardy Richardson, Eddie Rommel, Charlie Root, Schoolboy Rowe, Nap Rucker, Jimmy Ryan, Johnny Sain, Slim Sallee, Wally Schang, Luke Sewell, Rip Sewell, Bob Shawkey, Jimmy Sheckard, Urban Shocker, Joe Start, Riggs Stephenson, Jack Stivetts, Ezra Sutton, Jesse Tannehill, Fred Tenney, Mike Tiernan, Hal Trosky, Dizzy Trout, Virgil Trucks, George Uhle, Johnny Vander Meer, George Van Haltren, Hippo Vaughn, Bobby Veach, Dixie Walker, Lon Warneke, Gus Weyhing, Doc White, Will White, Earl Whitehill, Jim Whitney, Cy Williams, Ken Williams, Smoky Joe Wood, Rudy York;
Managers: Charlie Grimm (on 2010 ballot), Steve O'Neill (on 2010 ballot), Chuck Dressen, Jimmy Dykes, Pat Moran, Jim Mutrie;
Executives: Sam Breadon (on 2010, 2013 & 2016 ballots), August Herrmann (on 2016 ballot), Al Reach (on 2013 ballot), Chris von der Ahe (on 2016 ballot), Charles Ebbets, John Heydler, Harry Pulliam, Bob Quinn, Ben Shibe, Charles Somers, Charles Stoneham, John K. Tener, Nicholas Young;
Umpires: Cy Rigler (on 2008 ballot), Bill Dinneen, Bob Emslie, John Gaffney, Tim Hurst, George Moriarty, Silk O'Loughlin, Brick Owens, Babe Pinelli, Ernie Quigley, Beans Reardon, Jack Sheridan, Bill Summers;
Pioneers: Doc Adams (on 2016 ballot w/ 10 votes), Ernest Lanigan, Tim Murnane.
Shoeless Joe Jackson has been ruled ineligible for future ballots due to accusations that he helped throw the 1919 World Series along with 7 other teammates, when they played for the Chicago White Sox. Even though they were ruled innocent of the charges in a court of law, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis ruled them permanently banned from baseball and placed them on the list of "permanently ineligible" individuals from playing, managing or otherwise participating in baseball. There is some disagreement as to the guilt of Jackson and Buck Weaver. Several individuals, including the late Hall of Famer Ted Williams, have since sought to remove Jackson's name from baseball's "Permanently Ineligible" List so he can appear on the Early Baseball Era Committee's ballot. The only way that will happen is if the Commissioner of Baseball removes his name from the "Permanently Ineligible" List.
Committee members
1953–2001
The following is a list of members of the Veterans Committee from its establishment in 1953 to its radical reformation in 2001, along with the dates of their membership.
J. G. Taylor Spink, publisher of The Sporting News from 1914 to 1962, chairman of the committee (1953–1959)
Warren Brown, sportswriter who, among other things, is credited with giving Babe Ruth the nickname "The Sultan of Swat" (1953–1965)
Charlie Gehringer, Hall of Fame second baseman (1953–1992)
Warren Giles, President of the National League from 1951 to 1969; general manager of the Cincinnati Reds from 1937 to 1951 (1953–1978)
Frank Graham, sportswriter of the New York Journal-American. (1953–1965)
Will Harridge, President of the American League from 1931 to 1959 (1953–1971)
Paul Kerr, director of the Clark Foundation which funded the Hall, and future President of the Baseball Hall of Fame (1953–1978)
John Malaney sportswriter for The Boston Post and former BBWAA President (1953–1959)
Branch Rickey, who helped pioneer the farm system as general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals from 1919 to 1942, signed Jackie Robinson who broke the color barrier as president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1942 to 1950, and was at this time active general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, a position he held from 1950 to 1955 (1953–1965)
Charlie Segar, former sportswriter, and secretary-treasurer of the National League from 1951 to 1971 (1953–1993)
Frank Shaughnessy, President of the International League from 1936 to 1960 (1953–1969)
J. Roy Stockton, sportswriter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from 1918 to 1958, where he mostly covered the St. Louis Cardinals (1961–1971)
Dan Daniel, prolific sportswriter whose contributions over a long period led him to be called the dean of American baseball writers (1961–1976)
Joe Cronin, Hall of Fame shortstop [inducted in 1956] who also served as manager for the Boston Red Sox from 1935 to 1947, general manager for the Red Sox from 1947 to 1959, and President of the American League from 1959 to 1973 (1961–1984)
Ford Frick, National League President from 1934 to 1951 and Commissioner of Baseball from 1951 to 1965 (1966–1969)
Fred Lieb, sportswriter best known for nicknaming Yankee Stadium as "The House Ruth Built" (1966–1980)
Frankie Frisch, Hall of Fame second baseman [inducted 1947], who also served as manager (most notably for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1933 to 1938) and radio play-by-play announcer for Boston and the New York Giants (1967–1973)
Waite Hoyt, Hall of Fame pitcher [inducted 1969] who also served as radio play-by-play announcer for the Cincinnati Reds from 1942 to 1965 (1971–1976)
Bill Terry, Hall of Fame first baseman [inducted 1954], manager of the New York Giants from 1932 to 1941 (1971–1976)
Bob Broeg, sportswriter who covered the St. Louis Cardinals for 40 years, served on the Hall of Fame's Board of Directors from 1972 to 2000 (1972–2000)
Bill DeWitt, general manager of the St. Louis Browns from 1937 to 1951, and of the Cincinnati Reds from 1960 to 1966 (1973–1981)
Stan Musial, Hall of Fame outfielder and first baseman [inducted 1969] and general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1967 (1973–2001)
Burleigh Grimes, Hall of Fame pitcher [inducted 1964] and longtime scout (1977–1985)
Edgar Munzel, sportswriter who wrote for the Chicago Herald-Examiner and Chicago Sun-Times from 1929 to 1973 (1977–1996)
Bob Addie, sportswriter who covered baseball for The Washington Post and Washington Times-Herald (1978–1981)
Joe Reichler, sportswriter for the Associated Press from 1943 to 1966 who mostly covered baseball teams in New York City (1978–1988)
Roy Campanella, Hall of Fame catcher [inducted 1969] (1978–1993)
Buzzie Bavasi, general manager for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers [1950–1968], the San Diego Padres [1968–1972] and the California Angels [1977–1984] (1978–1999)
Al López, Hall of Fame manager [inducted 1977] for the Cleveland Indians [1951–1956] and Chicago White Sox [1957–1965, 1968–1969] (1978–1994)
Gabe Paul, general manager for the Cincinnati Reds [1951–1960], Cleveland Indians [1961–1969, 1971–1971] and New York Yankees [1974–1977], and President of the Cleveland Indians [1963–1971, 1978–1985] and New York Yankees [1973–1977] (1978–1993)
Joe L. Brown, general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1976 (1979–2001)
Birdie Tebbetts, manager for the Cincinnati Reds [1954–1958], Milwaukee Braves [1961–1962] and Cleveland Indians [1964–1966] and longtime scout [1968–1997] (1979–1993)
Allen Lewis, sportswriter for The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1949 to 1979 (1979–2000)
Buck O'Neil, Negro league first baseman and manager, first African-American coach in Major League Baseball, longtime scout for the Chicago Cubs and Kansas City Royals and member of the Baseball Scouts Hall of Fame in St. Louis (1981–2001)
Milton Richman, sportswriter for the United Press International from 1944 until his death in 1986 (1983–1986)
Monte Irvin, Hall of Fame left fielder from the Negro leagues [1938–1942, 1948] and MLB New York Giants [1949–1955] and Chicago Cubs [1956] [inducted 1973]
Bob Fishel, executive for the St. Louis Browns [1946–1953] and New York Yankees [1954–1974], and American League executive vice president [1974–1988] (1985–1988)
Ted Williams, Hall of Fame left fielder (1986–2000)
Shirley Povich, sportswriter for The Washington Post from 1923 until his death in 1998 (1987–1993)
Red Barber, radio play-by-play announcer for the Cincinnati Reds [1934–1938], Brooklyn Dodgers [1939–1953] and New York Yankees [1954–1966] (1988–1990)
Ernie Harwell, play-by-play announcer, most notably for the Detroit Tigers [1960–1991, 1993–2002] (1988–1995; 2001)
Billy Herman, Hall of Fame second baseman [inducted 1975]
Jack Brickhouse, play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Cubs from 1948 to 1981 (1991–1993)
Yogi Berra, Hall of Fame catcher [inducted 1972]
Pee Wee Reese, Hall of Fame shortstop [inducted 1984] and television play-by-play announcer (1994–1999)
Bill White, sportscaster and National League president from 1989 to 1994 (1994–2001)
Ken Coleman, play-by-play announcer for the Cleveland Indians [1954–1963], Boston Red Sox [1965–1974, 1979–1989] and Cincinnati Reds [1975–1978] (1996–2003)
Leonard Koppett, sportswriter and author
Hank Peters, general manager of the Baltimore Orioles from 1975 to 1987 and GM of the Cleveland Indians from 1987 to 1992 (1996–2001)
Jerome Holtzman, sportswriter for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1943 to 1981 and the Chicago Tribune from 1981 to 1999, creator of the save statistic, and official historian of Major League Baseball from 1999 until his death in 2008 (1998–2001)
Hank Aaron, Hall of Fame right fielder [inducted 1982] and senior vice president for the Atlanta Braves since 1980 (2000–2021)
John McHale, general manager for the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves [1959–1966] and Montreal Expos [1978–1984], president of the Montreal Expos [1969–1986] (2000–2007)
2008
As of December 2008, for 2009 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, members of the Veterans Committee were:
Pre-1943 Veterans Committee members
Hall of Famers
Bobby Doerr
Ralph Kiner
Phil Niekro
Duke Snider
Don Sutton
Dick Williams
Historians
Furman Bisher
Roland Hemond
Steve Hirdt
Bill Madden
Claire Smith
Post-1942 Veterans Committee members (67)
Hank Aaron
Sparky Anderson
Luis Aparicio
Ernie Banks
Johnny Bench
Yogi Berra
Wade Boggs
George Brett
Lou Brock
Jim Bunning
Rod Carew
Steve Carlton
Gary Carter
Orlando Cepeda
Andre Dawson
Bobby Doerr
Dennis Eckersley
Bob Feller
Rollie Fingers
Carlton Fisk
Whitey Ford
Bob Gibson
Goose Gossage
Tony Gwynn
Rickey Henderson
Monte Irvin
Reggie Jackson
Ferguson Jenkins
Al Kaline
George Kell
Harmon Killebrew
Ralph Kiner
Sandy Koufax
Tommy Lasorda
Lee MacPhail
Juan Marichal
Willie Mays
Bill Mazeroski
Willie McCovey
Paul Molitor
Joe Morgan
Eddie Murray
Stan Musial
Phil Niekro
Jim Palmer
Tony Pérez
Gaylord Perry
Jim Rice
Cal Ripken Jr.
Brooks Robinson
Frank Robinson
Nolan Ryan
Ryne Sandberg
Mike Schmidt
Red Schoendienst
Tom Seaver
Ozzie Smith
Duke Snider
Bruce Sutter
Don Sutton
Earl Weaver
Billy Williams
Dick Williams
Dave Winfield
Carl Yastrzemski
Robin Yount
2010
As of November 2010, for 2011 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, the only committee members announced were those voting for the post-1972 Expansion Era candidates:
Hall of Famers
Johnny Bench
Whitey Herzog
Eddie Murray
Jim Palmer
Tony Pérez
Frank Robinson
Ryne Sandberg
Ozzie Smith
Executives
Bill Giles
David Glass
Andy MacPhail
Jerry Reinsdorf
Media
Bob Elliott
Tim Kurkjian
Ross Newhan
Tom Verducci
2011
As of November 2011, for 2012 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, the 16-member Golden Era Committee was announced:
Hall of Famers
Hank Aaron
Pat Gillick
Al Kaline
Ralph Kiner
Tommy Lasorda
Juan Marichal
Brooks Robinson
Billy Williams
Executives
Paul Beeston
Bill DeWitt
Roland Hemond
Gene Michael
Al Rosen
Media
Dick Kaegel
Jack O'Connell
Dave Van Dyck
2012
As of November 2012, for 2013 Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, the 16-member Pre-Integration Era Committee was announced:
Executives: Bill DeWitt, Pat Gillick, Roland Hemond, Gary Hughes
Former players: Bert Blyleven, Phil Niekro, Don Sutton, Bob Watson
Historians: Jim Henneman, Steve Hirdt, Tom Simon, Mark Whicker
Media members: Peter Morris, Phil Pepe, Claire Smith, T. R. Sullivan
2013
The Pre-Integration Committee's 16-member voting electorate, appointed by the Hall of Fame's Board of Directors, was announced at the same time as the ballot of 10 candidates:
Hall of Famers: Bert Blyleven, Pat Gillick, Phil Niekro, Don Sutton
Executives: Bill DeWitt, Roland Hemond, Gary Hughes, Bob Watson
Media and historians: Jim Henneman, Steve Hirdt, Peter Morris, Phil Pepe, Tom Simon, Claire Smith, T.R. Sullivan, Mark Whicker
2014
The Expansion Era Committee's 16-member voting electorate, appointed by the Hall of Fame's Board of Directors, was announced at the same time as the ballot of 12 candidates. The Hall officially calls this group the "Expansion Era Committee", but media still generally refer to it as the "Veterans Committee".
Hall of Famers: Rod Carew, Carlton Fisk, Whitey Herzog, Tommy Lasorda, Joe Morgan, Paul Molitor, Phil Niekro, Frank Robinson
Executives: Paul Beeston, Andy MacPhail, Dave Montgomery, Jerry Reinsdorf
Media and historians: Steve Hirdt, Bruce Jenkins, Jack O'Connor, Jim Reeves
2015
The Golden Era Committee's 16-member voting electorate, appointed by the Hall of Fame's Board of Directors, was announced at the same time as the ballot of 10 candidates. The Baseball Hall of Fame officially named this group the "Golden Era Committee" ("The Committee"), which voted for the first time on December 5, 2011. All of the Hall of Fame members on this committee were inducted as players, except for executive Pat Gillick.
Hall of Famers: Jim Bunning, Rod Carew, Pat Gillick, Ferguson Jenkins, Al Kaline, Joe Morgan, Ozzie Smith, Don Sutton
Executives: Jim Frey, David Glass, Roland Hemond, Bob Watson
Media: Steve Hirdt, Dick Kaegel, Phil Pepe, Tracy Ringolsby
2016
The Pre-Integration ballot for election was released on October 5, 2015; final voting was conducted by the Pre-Integration Committee, a 16-member body which met at baseball's winter meetings in Nashville on December 6, with 75% (12 of 16 votes) required for election; results were announced the following morning. The committee's members, appointed by the Hall of Fame's board of directors, were announced later in fall 2015 and included members of the Hall, baseball executives, members of the media and historians:
Hall of Famers: Bert Blyleven, Bobby Cox, Pat Gillick and Phil Niekro
Executives: Chuck Armstrong, Bill DeWitt, Gary Hughes and Tal Smith
Media/Historians: Steve Hirdt, Peter Morris, Jack O'Connell, Claire Smith, Tim Sullivan, T.R. Sullivan, Gary Thorne and Tim Wendel
Blyleven, Gillick, Niekro, DeWitt, Hughes, Hirdt, Morris, Smith and T.R. Sullivan previously served on the committee which selected the 2013 inductees. For the second consecutive year, none of the candidates received enough votes for election; it marked the third consecutive year – and the fifth time in seven years – in which no former players were chosen by the Hall's special committees. Speaking on MLB Network's Hot Stove immediately after it broadcast the announcement, Major League Baseball's official historian John Thorn expressed surprise and disappointment at the results, noting that he had felt there were three particularly strong candidates (prior to the announcement, he had commented favorably on the candidacies of Doc Adams and Harry Stovey); he speculated that the number of good candidates may have deadlocked the voting once again, and suggested that the Hall may need to amend the voting process in the future.
2017
The committee consisted of the following individuals:
Hall of Famers: Roberto Alomar, Bobby Cox, Andre Dawson, Dennis Eckersley, Pat Gillick, Ozzie Smith, Don Sutton and Frank Thomas
Executives: Paul Beeston, Bill DeWitt, David Glass, Andy MacPhail and Kevin Towers
Media and historians: Bill Center, Steve Hirdt, and Tim Kurkjian
Non-voting committee chair: Jane Forbes Clark (Hall of Fame chairman)
2018
The committee consisted of the following individuals:
Hall of Famers: George Brett, Rod Carew, Bobby Cox, Dennis Eckersley, John Schuerholz, Don Sutton, Dave Winfield, Robin Yount
Executives: Sandy Alderson, Paul Beeston, Bob Castellini, David Glass, Bill DeWitt
Media and historians: Bob Elliott, Steve Hirdt, Jayson Stark
Non-voting committee chair: Jane Forbes Clark (Hall of Fame chairman)
2019
The committee consisted of the following individuals:
Hall of Famers: Roberto Alomar, Bert Blyleven, Pat Gillick, Tony La Russa, Greg Maddux, Joe Morgan, John Schuerholz, Ozzie Smith, Joe Torre
Executives: Al Avila, Paul Beeston, Andy MacPhail, Jerry Reinsdorf
Media and historians: Steve Hirdt, Tim Kurkjian, Claire Smith
Non-voting committee chair: Jane Forbes Clark (Hall of Fame chairman)
2020
The cutoff for election to the Hall of Fame remained the standard 75%; as the Modern Baseball Era Committee consisted of 16 members, 12 votes was the minimum for selection. The 16-member Hall of Fame Board-appointed electorate charged with the review of the Modern Baseball Era featured Hall of Fame members George Brett, Rod Carew, Dennis Eckersley, Eddie Murray, Ozzie Smith and Robin Yount; major league executives Sandy Alderson, Dave Dombrowski, David Glass, Walt Jocketty, Doug Melvin and Terry Ryan; and veteran media members/historians Bill Center, Steve Hirdt, Jack O’Connell and Tracy Ringolsby.
2021
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, meetings of the Early Baseball committee and Golden Days committee were postponed from December 2020 to December 2021.
2022
Early Baseball Committee
The committee consisted of the following individuals:
Hall of Famers: Bert Blyleven, Ferguson Jenkins, John Schuerholtz, Ozzie Smith, Joe Torre
Executives: William DeWitt Jr., Ken Kendrick, Tony Reagins
Media and historians: Steve Hirdt, Rick Hummel, John Thorn, Gary Ashwill, Adrian Burgos Jr., Leslie Heaphy, Jim Henneman, Justice B. Hill
Non-voting committee chair: Bud Selig, Jane Forbes Clark (Hall of Fame chairman)
Golden Days Era Committee
The committee consisted of the following individuals:
Hall of Famers: Rod Carew, Ferguson Jenkins, Mike Schmidt, John Schuerholtz, Bud Selig, Ozzie Smith, Joe Torre
Executives: Al Avila, William DeWitt Jr., Ken Kendrick, Kim Ng, Tony Reagins
Media and historians: Steve Hirdt, Jaime Jarrin, Adrian Burgos Jr., Jack O'Connell
Non-voting committee chair: Jane Forbes Clark (Hall of Fame chairman)
2023
Contemporary Era Baseball Committee
The committee consisted of the following individuals:
Hall of Famers: Greg Maddux, Jack Morris, Ryne Sandberg, Lee Smith, Frank Thomas, Alan Trammell
Executives: Paul Beeston, Theo Epstein, Derrick Hall, Arte Moreno, Kim Ng, Dave St. Peter, Ken Williams
Media and historians: Steve Hirdt, La Velle Neal, Susan Slusser
See also
List of members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
Notes
References
External links
Baseball Hall of Fame: The Veterans Committee
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
Awards juries and committees |
423155 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry%20Sanford | Terry Sanford | James Terry Sanford (August 20, 1917April 18, 1998) was an American lawyer and politician from North Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, Sanford served as the 65th Governor of North Carolina from 1961 to 1965, was a two-time U.S. presidential candidate in the 1970s, and served as a U.S. senator from 1986 to 1993. He was a strong proponent of public education and introduced several reforms and new programs in North Carolina's schools and institutions of higher education as the state's governor. From 1970 to 1985, Sanford served as the president of Duke University.
Born in Laurinburg, North Carolina, Sanford became a Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1939. During World War II he joined the United States Army and saw combat in the European Theater. Following the war, Sanford attended and graduated from the University of North Carolina School of Law and began a legal career in the late 1940s, soon becoming involved in politics. He served one term in the North Carolina Senate and managed W. Kerr Scott's U.S. Senate campaign in 1954 before running for governor in 1960. Focusing on improving education and economic opportunity, he defeated segregationist I. Beverly Lake, Sr. in the Democratic primary and was subsequently elected governor in the general election. Taking office in 1961, he pushed a controversial tax increase through the state legislature to double public spending on schools and created a commission to study further education. Growing increasingly anxious about opportunities for black students, he became the first Southern governor to call for an end to racially discriminatory employment practices in 1963 and used law enforcement to protect civil rights demonstrators. He also created the North Carolina Fund to alleviate poverty and lobbied for a major environmental research facility to be located at the Research Triangle Park.
Leaving the governorship in 1965, Sanford remained active in Democratic Party politics and engaged in the practice of law before being hired as President of Duke University in 1970. While there, he increased the school's fundraising, managed student protests, and created new institutions to study public policy issues. Retiring in 1985, he successfully ran for a U.S. Senate seat the following year. In Congress he maintained a liberal voting record, cofounding the International Commission for Central American Recovery and Development, objecting to the passage of a Flag Desecration Amendment, and criticizing American involvement in the Gulf War. Defeated in a bid for re-election in 1992, he spent his later years practicing law, writing, and teaching at Duke before he died of cancer in 1998. He is remembered in North Carolina as the "education governor" and served as a role model for several other Southern governors.
Early life
Youth
James Terry Sanford was born on August 20, 1917, in Laurinburg, North Carolina, United States. He was the second of five children of Elizabeth Terry () and Cecil Leroy Sanford. His father ran a hardware store while his mother worked as a teacher. The Sanfords enjoyed a middle class standard of living. During the Great Depression, Cecil's hardware store was forced to close and the family was unable to pay rent, but the company which owned their house allowed them to stay. Cecil struggled to find steady work and performed temporary jobs while Elizabeth returned to full-time teaching. Despite the family's economic troubles, the Sanfords never went hungry and Terry later reflected that he never thought of his family as poor. He and his brother worked odd jobs to make money in their youth, including raising chickens and pigs, selling vegetables, picking cotton, planting tobacco, and delivering newspapers.
Education
By November 1933 Sanford's father had found a new permanent job and purchased a house, and the following year Sanford graduated from high school. In the fall of 1934 Sanford enrolled at Presbyterian Junior College in Maxton. He worked part-time to pay for his tuition and lived at his parents' home while he studied there, but he found the instruction lacking and dropped out after one semester. In the fall of 1935 he enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He worked various jobs to pay for his tuition and during his senior year he settled on majoring in political science. After graduating in 1939 Sanford decided to enroll in law school.
While studying at the University of North Carolina School of Law, Sanford befriended Professor Albert Coates. He also took an increased interest in student politics, and won a seat in the newly created student legislative council. In that position he chaired the body's ways and means committee until he was elected its speaker. Early in 1941 he found work at UNC-Chapel Hill's Institute of Government, which was managed by Coates. In 1940, as World War II intensified and the likelihood of American involvement increased, the United States enacted a draft, and many students voluntarily joined the Armed Forces. Sanford attempted to get a commission in the Army Air Corps. Although he had earned his pilot's license, the corps determined he was nearsighted and thus unfit to fly. He then unsuccessfully applied to join the Marine Corps and the Navy.
FBI and military service
With Coates' help, Sanford applied to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which waived its requirement of a law degree and admitted him. After completing his semester exams, he began training in December 1941. He was posted as a special agent in Columbus, Ohio, and St. Louis. He married Margaret Rose Knight, a woman he had met at UNC-Chapel Hill, on July 4, 1942, and they later had two children: Terry Jr. and Elizabeth. Sanford pursued a position in the Armed Forces—as the United States had since entered the World War II—being especially intrigued by the new paratrooper units. After securing leave from the FBI, he enlisted in the Army on December 7, 1942. He was sent to Camp Toccoa in Georgia for training and was assigned to a medical detachment in the 501st Infantry Regiment. After eight weeks he was made a staff sergeant, and following jump training at Fort Benning he was sent to Camp Mackall and made assistant first sergeant. After a month he was promoted to first sergeant. He underwent officer training in 1943, and became a second lieutenant, and was made a platoon commander in A Company, First Battalion of the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
Sanford's unit was shipped to Italy in May 1944. He first fought in combat against German forces in June in the mountains north of Rome. In August he parachuted into southern France as the leader of B Company, First Battalion in Operation Dragoon. By December he had achieved the rank of first lieutenant. That month the German army launched a counteroffensive through the Ardennes region in Belgium, initiating the Battle of the Bulge. Sanford and his unit were quickly deployed to the village of Soy. While his company was holding a ridge line near the Soy-Hotton road, fighting broke out and Sanford captured a German major who had run through the American lines, restraining him by grabbing his belt. In early January 1945 he received a shrapnel wound to his hand while walking through a German machine gun ambush near the town of Bergeval. In late February, the 517th Regiment was recalled to Joigny in preparation for a new airborne operation, but it and subsequent assaults were dropped as Allied ground forces made steady advances over German-held territory. For his service in France and his wounds Sanford was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
Early legal career and Institute of Government
As the European theatre wound down in April 1945, preparations were made to deploy the 517th Regiment in the Pacific War. Japan surrendered before it was done, and Sanford was released from duty. He re-enrolled at UNC Law School for the fall 1945 semester to finish his courses and earn his degree. He graduated in 1946, and took the bar examination; he was admitted to the North Carolina State Bar in November. That fall he also was hired by Coates to serve as an assistant director of the Institute of Government and held the job until 1948. He then decided to pursue a career as a lawyer, and wanted to establish himself as a leading figure in a community so as to pave the way for a bid to become Governor of North Carolina. He decided to move to Fayetteville, which he thought was appropriately sized as a small city and not too far away from Laurinburg. After moving there in 1948 he worked in Charlie Rose Jr.'s law firm, before setting up his own practice with L. Stacy Weaver. Sanford served as a company commander with the rank of captain in Company K of 119th Infantry Regiment of the North Carolina Army National Guard from 1948 to 1960.
Early political career
Young Democratic Clubs and Graham campaign
In the runoff 1948 Democratic gubernatorial primary, Sanford supported W. Kerr Scott, and after Scott was elected governor he appointed Sanford to a position in the North Carolina State Ports Authority. In 1949 Sanford was elected president of the North Carolina Young Democratic Clubs (YDC).
In March 1949 Scott surprised many Democrats when he appointed liberal UNC President Frank Porter Graham to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat. Graham's seat was subject to a special election in 1950. In the Democratic primary he was challenged by conservative Willis Smith. Sanford was friends with Smith's son and respected him, but admired Graham and was "all out" for him. As YDC president, he had to keep his public stance on the primary neutral, though Smith's campaign accused him of showing his favoritism. Graham won a plurality of the vote in the first primary, and Smith called for a runoff election. The campaign then took on racial overtones, as Smith's supporters attacked Graham for his support of civil rights. Sanford wanted to improve Graham's support in Cumberland County, and approached Graham's local campaign manager to ask for a precinct he could canvass. He then took a job working in the Cumberland Mills area south of Fayetteville. During this time he kept a notebook where he jotted down lessons he was learning from campaigning. Of the 25 to 30 pages he filled, Sanford reflected, "I learned one thing. That is, don't ever let them get off the defensive. Frank Graham let them get off the defensive. He was just so nice and sweet." Graham won the Cumberland Mills precinct but lost the statewide primary. Sanford shortly thereafter visited Graham and vowed "to get even, to rectify that injustice."
North Carolina Senate tenure
In 1952 Sanford ran for a seat in the 10th district in the North Carolina Senate, defeating a former legislator in the Democratic primary with 75 percent of the vote and facing no opposition in the general election. He was sworn in on January 7, 1953, and served one term to 1955, deciding not to run for a second term. He served on the Judiciary, Education, Conservation and Development, and Finance committees, but did not get his desired seat on the Appropriations committee. Sanford shared a room with another legislator at the Sir Walter Hotel in Raleigh while the North Carolina General Assembly was in session and worked at his law firm in Fayetteville in the evenings and on weekends. He found his legislative tenure dull and restrictive. He mostly worked on minor legislation affecting local issues, but developed a rapport with several political journalists, who sought him for quotes on their stories about statewide affairs.
Managing Scott's U.S. Senate campaign
While in the state senate Sanford befriended Ralph H. Scott, brother of former Governor Kerr Scott. In 1953 when Kerr Scott began mulling a 1954 campaign for the U.S. Senate, Ralph, Capus M. Waynick, and Graham all advised him to hire Sanford as his campaign manager, hoping he could gain Scott more young supporters. Sanford temporarily left his law practice and took the job, living off of a bank loan in the interim. Scott declared his candidacy in early 1954. Sanford tried to temper Scott's abrasive public image by preparing uncontroversial speeches for him, though Scott reportedly tore many of these up before attending campaign events. Sanford also assisted Scott in crafting a public stance on racial issues in wake of the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education mandating the desegregation of public schools. He wrote a speech read by Scott insisting on the candidate's support for segregated education and separate but equal schools. Scott's opponent in the Democratic primary, Alton Lennon, attempted to portray Scott as a weak segregationist. When a leaflet ostensibly from a black civic group began to circulate in the last week of the primary emphasizing Scott's appointments of black officials during his time as governor—information that would damage his support among white voters—Lennon's campaign organization claimed it had no connection to them. Sanford recruited a union member to infiltrate Lennon's campaign, and through this was able to discover that it was printing and distributing copies of the leaflets. Sanford leaked the information to The News & Observer, which ran a story on the intrigue. He also called for a federal investigation and sent telegrams to Lennon campaign managers threatening to sue them if they distributed more leaflets. Scott won the Democratic nomination and the general election. In 1956 Sanford, at Scott's encouragement, considered challenging Luther H. Hodges in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. He later decided against it and attempted unsuccessfully with Scott's allies to recruit a different challenger.
Gubernatorial career
1960 campaign and election
Sanford began finding supporters and fundraising in preparation for his gubernatorial bid in 1959. On February 4, 1960, he declared his candidacy for governor in Fayetteville. He focused on the improvement of education and increased economic growth during his campaign. The other candidates in the Democratic primary were North Carolina Attorney General Malcolm Buie Seawell, state legislator John D. Larkins, and law professor I. Beverly Lake, Sr. Lake declared that preservation of racial segregation and the state's existing social order would be the main theme of his campaign, worrying Sanford, who wished to avoid race becoming a large topic of discussion in the contest. Larkins and Seawell both ran as fiscal conservatives and moderates on issues of race. As Sanford was expected to place first in the initial primary, Larkins and Seawell focused their rhetorical criticisms against him, while Lake drew upon increasing support for his segregationist stances. Sanford resorted to only minor criticisms of his opponents. Voter turnout in the May primary broke all previous records for turnout in state primary elections with a 16 percent increase. Sanford placed first with 269,463 votes, Lake placed second with 181,692 votes, and both Larkins and Seawell earned less than 20 percent of the votes.
In declaring that he would contest Sanford in the Democratic primary runoff, Lake insisted that he liked Sanford personally, but disapproved of his economic and racial policies. He criticized Sanford as a proponent of a "spend and tax" platform and pledged to oppose the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and ensure that schools remained segregated. Feeling he could not afford to be too polite in his response, Sanford countered with hostility, saying "Let's get this straight right now on the race issue ... I have been and will continue to oppose to the end domination or direction by the NAACP. Professor Lake is bringing on integration when he stirs this up. I don't believe in playing race against race or group against group." He further accused Lake of attempting to secure support by ruining race relations and assured that he could stave off federally-mandated integration whereas Lake would generate a confrontation that would hasten it. He also attacked Lake's professional background, insisting "I was raised around the cotton patches and tobacco fields of Scotland County, and I know how to handle the racial situation better than a theoretical college professor." He contended that Lake's focus on racial matters distracted from the more important subject of quality education. Lake increased his rhetorical attacks on Sanford in the following weeks, including accusing Sanford of having the near-total support of the "Negro bloc vote", which Sanford disputed.
Sanford received Seawell's endorsement and the quiet backing of Governor Hodges. He also cultivated a strong campaign organization—bolstered by the connections he had made during Scott's 1954 Senate campaign—and garnered the support of labor unions and education lobbyists. His network included former Scott supporters, Jaycees, and Young Democratic Clubs; he avoided relying on the traditional courthouse cliques. Winston-Salem businessman Bert Bennett, Sanford's friend and former classmate at UNC-Chapel Hill, provided critical leadership to his campaign and lined up key support behind him. Sanford was also innovative in the use of media consultants and polling data, being the first North Carolinian gubernatorial candidate to hire a pollster and prolifically use television advertisements. He ran as a progressive, but tried to avoid being labeled too liberal on issues of race. Businessmen and professionals who feared that Lake's positions on race would be unfavorable to North Carolina's economy backed Sanford. Sanford ultimately won the June 27 Democratic primary with a large lead, earning 352,133 votes in contrast to Lake's 275,905.
Meanwhile, preparations were underway for the 1960 Democratic National Convention in July. While most Southern politicians declared their support for Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas for the party's nomination in the 1960 United States presidential election, Sanford endorsed Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts—the favorite to win the nomination—bringing the senator more support from the North Carolina Democratic delegation than any other Southern state, but angering Hodges and some of his own supporters and stoking division in the state Democratic Party. Kennedy ultimately secured the nomination and selected Johnson as the vice presidential nominee.
Sanford faced a strong opponent for the governor's race, Robert L. Gavin, a moderate conservative Republican attorney. Gavin denounced Sanford as a tool of the liberal leadership of the national Democratic Party and organized labor. Although his reputation had been harmed by his early endorsement of Kennedy, Sanford enthusiastically campaigned for the two of them. He attacked Gavin for contradicting himself on several occasions and for displaying a lack of familiarity with certain issues. In the November election both Kennedy and Sanford won the offices they sought. Kennedy won the popular vote in North Carolina. Sanford won with 54.3 percent of the vote, approximately 131,000 votes over Gavin, but his performance was lackluster for a Democrat seeking state office at the time. Sanford remained proud of his gubernatorial victory for the rest of his life, feeling he had defeated a racist candidate (Lake) and avenged Graham's loss in 1950. Out of appreciation for Sanford's contribution to his campaign, Kennedy appointed Hodges to his cabinet as United States Secretary of Commerce. Sanford arranged for Bennett to assume the chairmanship of the North Carolina Democratic Party. In that capacity, Bennett organized continued backing for Sanford within the party and eased the way for many of Sanford's supporters to advance in its ranks.
Sanford was sworn in as Governor on January 5, 1961. In his inaugural address he declared, "There is a new day in North Carolina! ... Gone are the shackles. Gone are the limitations. Gone are the overwhelming obstacles. North Carolina is on the move and we intend to stay on the move." He became the youngest governor in North Carolina since Charles B. Aycock and the first born in the 20th century.
Education
In 1960, North Carolina spent $237 per pupil in public school (as opposed to New York's $562), paid some of the lowest salaries in the country to its teachers, had overcrowded high school classes, and had the lowest average number of years of education among its residents in the United States. Sanford believed that improved statewide education would raise North Carolina's low average wages. In his inaugural address, he affirmed his wish to increase spending for the purpose, saying, "If it takes more taxes to give our children this quality education, we must face that fact and provide the money. We must never lose sight of the fact that our children are our best investment. This is no age for the faint of heart." Sanford spent the first few months of his time in office lobbying for a legislative plan to increase state spending on education.
The centerpiece of Sanford's education platform was the Quality Education Program, which called for a 22 percent increase in average teacher pay, 33 percent more funds for instructional supplies, and a 100 percent increase in school library money. Sanford initially had difficulty figuring out how to fund his proposal, as the state already levied comparatively high income and corporate taxes, and a luxury tax on goods such as tobacco and soft drinks was likely to upset much of the populace. Many other elected state officials were fiscally conservative, and were likely to oppose any significant borrowing of money and raising debts. At the end of February 1961, Sanford decided to fund his proposals through the elimination of exemptions of the state's 3 percent sales tax on certain goods, including food and prescription drugs. The advanced taxes were controversial, and the conservative General Assembly was hesitant to pass them into law. Upon the convening of the General Assembly in March many legislators commented in private that the proposal was doomed to fail. Liberals and journalists criticized it as unfair to the poor, who would be hurt the most by a tax on food. Despite these doubts, Sanford had the good faith of legislative leaders, being friends with Lieutenant Governor Harvey Cloyd Philpott and working on building a relationship with Speaker of the State House of Representatives Joseph M. Hunt Jr.
Sanford promoted his plan through a series of rallies across the state, arguing that North Carolina trailed most other states with respect to education and that the exemptions elimination was more acceptable than a 1 percent tax increase on all other items. He also intensively lobbied state legislators, inviting them to breakfast at the Governor's Mansion and visiting them at the Sir Walter Hotel. Aside from arguing for his program, Sanford granted political favors in exchange for support. He also actively challenged his critics to think of a better way to fund the education plan. Members of the press and disgruntled liberals backed down when they realized that without the new levy the education expansions would have to be scaled down.
Sanford's effort was ultimately successful and the General Assembly implemented his program and the taxes. Average teacher salaries for North Carolina quickly rose from 39th to 32nd among the states, and per-pupil expenditures rose from 45th to 38th. Sanford's successful lobbying gained national attention. He was subsequently invited to numerous events around the country to speak about his education plan, and he visited thirty states. The increase in taxes was nevertheless poorly received in North Carolina and resulted in a backlash; in November 1961 the electorate rejected 10 state bond proposals in a referendum—the first time a bond had been turned down since 1924—and a public opinion poll found that three fifths of the population disapproved of Sanford's performance as Governor. The referendum defeat demoralized Sanford's staff. Though upset with the outcome and unapologetic in supporting the bonds, Sanford insisted on moving past the failure and focusing his attention elsewhere. In the 1962 elections the Democrats lost seats in the State House of Representatives. Sanford was disappointed, but he remained convinced that the tax proposal was the best way to fund his program and refused to heed calls to alter it.
In 1961 Sanford appointed a Governor's Commission on Education Beyond the High School under the leadership of Irving E. Carlyle. The commission produced a set of proposals in August 1962 aimed at increasing college enrollment in North Carolina. One of its recommendations was the consolidation of the state's "public junior colleges" and "industrial education centers" under a single system of community colleges. In May 1963 the General Assembly responded by creating a Department of Community Colleges under the State Board of Education. Sanford also convinced the legislature to establish the North Carolina School of the Arts to retain gifted students "in the fields of music, drama, the dance and allied performing arts, at both the high school and college levels of instruction" in their home state.
Sanford's policies ultimately resulted in the near-doubling of North Carolina's expenditures on public schools and the hiring of 2,800 additional teachers. However, he struggled to ensure the state's educational funding maintained parity with other states and matched with inflation. Despite convincing the legislature to appropriate an additional $50 million () towards public schools during the 1963 session, by the end of his tenure North Carolina's national rankings in educational expenditures had fallen.
North Carolina Fund
Feeling that his education program had spent most of his political capital in the legislature, Sanford began seeking private support to fund anti-poverty efforts in North Carolina. While traveling across the state to promote his education plan, Sanford came to believe that much of the poverty in North Carolina was due to racial discrimination and the lack of economic opportunity for blacks. He thus concluded that any anti-poverty plan he created would have to address economic problems for both blacks and whites. In mid-1962 he met John Ehle, a novelist and professor whom he quickly took on as an adviser on public policy. With Ehle he met with leaders of the Ford Foundation, a private philanthropic organization, and discussed a variety of issues with them, including anti-poverty efforts. He also established contact with George Esser, an academic at UNC-Chapel Hill's Institute of Government, to ask him for potential uses of Ford Foundation funds in combating poverty. Sanford's aides organized a three-day tour of North Carolina in January 1963 for Ford Foundation leaders to convince them to fund an anti-poverty project. He worked to secure the support of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, two smaller North Carolina philanthropic organizations, to bolster proposed grants from the Ford Foundation, and tapped the advice of John H. Wheeler, leader of the black business community in Durham. He also invited officials from the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to come to North Carolina to work on coordinating federal efforts with the state project.
In July 1963 the Ford Foundation committed $7 million to support an anti-poverty project in North Carolina. With additional grants from the other foundations, on July 18 Sanford and several civic leaders incorporated the North Carolina Fund. Its goals were to fight poverty and promote racial equality across the state. Since the North Carolina Fund was backed by private organizations and not financed by the state, it could be more flexible in addressing social issues while also avoiding political opposition from segregationists. Sanford was made chairman of the Fund's board and publicly announced its creation at a press conference on September 30. The organization had a racially integrated staff—which was unusual at the time—and consulted the local residents it aimed to assist. The Fund launched a program that utilized team teaching and provided for teacher aides, which was studied by President Johnson's administration and used as a model for Head Start. The Fund also supported eleven additional anti-poverty programs under another initiative which included the establishment of day care facilities and job training courses. These were also evaluated by the Johnson administration when it developed its "war on poverty" programs. Sanford himself was disappointed by Johnson's war on poverty and the agency responsible for it, the Office of Economic Opportunity, and told federal officials that the goal of their effort should not be to eliminate poverty—which Sanford thought impossible—as much as it should be to reduce the "causes of poverty." The Fund ceased operations in 1969.
Race relations and civil rights
When Sanford assumed the governorship, the state of racial affairs in North Carolina was essentially the same as it had been since the early 1900s. The vast majority of schools and public accommodations remained segregated, and nonwhite voter registration rates were significantly lower than those of whites. In his inaugural address, Sanford appealed for mutual respect and understanding between races and said that "no group of our citizens can be denied the right to participate in the opportunities of first-class citizenship." He enrolled his daughter Betsee and his son Terry in the integrated Murphy School (it was attended by a single black student), an action which received attention in the state and national press.
Sanford had considered racism to be immoral since he was student at the University of North Carolina, but initially wished to avoid dealing with issues of racial equality directly as governor, viewing it as a distraction from his main platform and politically dangerous. He had no planned strategy or agenda for the issue. However, he soon felt that as governor he had to take some action to address the growing tension in the United States due to the increasing activity of the civil rights movement. Shortly after taking office, he began appointing black professionals to state offices. Ultimately, he placed over three dozen blacks on state boards, commissions, and committees. He also consulted black community and business leaders on civil rights issues. In 1961 Sanford and the chairman of the Board of Conservation and Development, Skipper Bowles, decided to integrate North Carolina's state parks. Sanford generally believed that the use of persuasion and appeals to decency instead of invoking the law and employing force would mollify segregationists and lead to social change. He thought that the "basic goodness of people" would prevail in racial matters, and was often disappointed to encounter hostility from North Carolinians opposed to desegregation.
In May 1961 a multiracial group of civil rights activists known as Freedom Riders prepared to enter North Carolina on intercity buses to ensure the desegregation of them and related transit facilities in the South. Under Sanford's orders, the State Highway Patrol monitored the buses' movements and guarded against potential violence from angry segregationist whites. Throughout his tenure Sanford would deploy state police at civil rights demonstrations to maintain order and deter violence, but he never used them to disperse demonstrators. He later said, "It was up to us to keep the order and let them demonstrate, which was constitutional. It was unthinkable to put them in jail for that." He also expressed support for President Kennedy's actions to maintain order during the integration of the University of Mississippi. Sanford remained conscious of the desires of the white constituency which had elected him, and in one instance wrote federal officials to request that a group of white North Carolinian army reservists be reassigned from the predominantly black army unit to which they were posted. Sanford let the matter drop after the United States Department of Defense refused to honor his request. Journalists often wrote about Sanford's actions regarding racial issues and dubbed him a leading moderate. He enjoyed the media attention, but shied away from being portrayed as party to a conflict with the South's more hardline segregationist governors.
Sanford's cautious stance on civil rights and racial issues began to change while he traveled across North Carolina to visit schools to promote his education program. Sanford visited both white and black schools and encouraged the students to pursue their education as means of securing economic prosperity in the future. Over time he grew uncomfortable saying this to black schoolchildren, later explaining, "I had the sickening feeling that every time I talked to them I was saying words that were a mockery ... I was talking about opportunities that I knew, and I feared they knew, didn't exist, no matter how hard they might work in school." Sanford was also moved to reconsider his views after discovering that many elderly blacks in Raleigh were—to his surprise—dissatisfied with the status quo and financially supporting student protestors.
Once resolved that he had to take more action to support racial equality, Sanford began making statements in favor of it. In October 1962, he said that poverty in North Carolina was worsened by the lack of economic opportunity for blacks and that whites would have to handle the "difficult problems of race" in a "spirit of Christian fellowship". He subsequently drafted a speech entitled "Observations for a Second Century" which directly called for the support of civil rights. Sanford shared his work with over 100 of his associates; most were supportive of his aims, but others feared the consequences his statement would have on the Democratic Party. On January 18, 1963, Sanford delivered his address at the Carolina Inn before the North Carolina Press Association. In the speech he called for an end to racially discriminatory employment practices—making him the first Southern governor to do so—saying, "The time has come for American citizens to give up this reluctance, to quit unfair discrimination, and to give the Negro a full chance to earn a decent living for his family and to contribute to higher standards for himself and all men." The same day Sanford announced the creation of the Good Neighbor Council, a biracial panel aimed at developing voluntary nondiscriminatory hiring practices and encouraging youth to prepare for gainful employment. The council did not have any provision to enforce its recommendations and thus its impact was minimal. Sanford also requested that the heads of state agencies adopt nondiscriminatory hiring policies and supported a bill that reduced racial barriers in the North Carolina National Guard.
Ultimately, Sanford's attempts at reform did not significantly alter employment dynamics in the state and only benefited a minority of blacks. The racial integration of public schools also made little progress during his tenure. Many young black people felt Sanford was not doing enough to address their concerns. In May 1963, 500 black student demonstrators gathered on the lawn of the Governor's Mansion and chanted for the governor to come out. Sanford told them, "If you want to talk to me at any time about your plans and your problems, let my office know. You have not come to me with any requests." When one of the demonstrators yelled that Sanford should have already been aware of their grievances without any specific requests, Sanford responded, "I'm not dictator, son. You're in a democracy." The group booed him and eventually left the premises.
In late May and early June, 400 black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro were arrested for breaking segregationist practices in cafeterias and movie theaters. Sanford arranged for their release and had them returned to the college campus. Later in June, he summoned 150 black civic leaders to the North Carolina State Capitol where he told them that he would not "let mass demonstrations destroy us." He told them that their enemy was not white people; instead, it was "a system bequeathed to us by a cotton economy, kindled by stubbornness, intolerance, hotheadedness, North and South exploding into war and leaving to our generation the ashes of vengeance, retribution, and poverty. The way to fight this common enemy is education." In early July, Sanford convened a meeting of over 200 municipal officials and established a Mayors Coordinating Committee to address civil rights concerns.
In January 1964, James Farmer and Floyd McKissick of the Congress of Racial Equality demanded that the city of Chapel Hill, already one of the most integrated communities in the state, fully desegregate by February 1 or face a wave of demonstrations. Sanford released a statement of reproach towards the ultimatum and promised municipal officials his support. He later said, "I felt that I had been pushed around long enough." The following month activists went through with their protests, heightening local tensions and resulting in numerous arrests. Sanford hosted Farmer and McKissick at the Governor's Mansion in an attempt to broker a solution, but the situation was not resolved until a local committee reached an agreement between the demonstrators and municipal officials.
Later tenure
It was rumored by Kennedy's personal secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, that Kennedy had considered removing Johnson as vice president from his electoral ticket in the 1964 presidential election and replacing him with Sanford. Sanford later dismissed these rumors, feeling that such an action was not politically advantageous and would have damaged Kennedy's election prospects in the South. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Sanford's office issued a brief statement, calling the event "overwhelming". Sanford and his family attended Kennedy's state funeral in Washington, D.C. The assassination came at a time when Sanford had been lobbying Kennedy to consider locating a large environmental research center in North Carolina. The decision then fell to Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy as the president and had to consider pressure from other politicians that wanted the facility in their own respective states.
Sanford's racial policies upset North Carolina's white populace, though he was able to contain white backlash throughout his administration. During the 1964 North Carolina gubernatorial election, L. Richardson Preyer, a supporter of Sanford, faced conservative Dan K. Moore in the Democratic primary election. Sanford was constitutionally restricted from seeking a successive term. He had originally wanted Lieutenant Governor Philpott to succeed him, but Philpott had unexpectedly died in August 1961. He instead endorsed Preyer while Lake endorsed Moore. At the same time Johnson was running for election as president, and Sanford actively supported him. The gubernatorial contest devolved into a de facto referendum on Sanford's tenure, particularly his handling of race matters, and Moore secured the nomination. Lake dubbed the outcome a popular rejection of Sanford's service. Sanford felt betrayed by civil rights leaders, since he thought that their insistence on continuing demonstrations in Chapel Hill had aggravated white resentment and damaged Preyer's electoral prospects.
Anticipating that Moore and his allies would attempt to dismantle some of his initiatives upon assuming office, Sanford spent the last six months of his term trying to ensure the protection of his projects, placing one of Moore's top aides on the board of the North Carolina Fund and transferring a summer internship program for college students interested in state politics out of the governor's office and into UNC's Institute of Government. Sanford also urged the Research Triangle Institute to study affordable housing proposals and established a commission to plan for the future of development and growth in the Piedmont Crescent region. He traveled to Washington, D.C. to have his official portrait made and then went to New York to present Jacqueline Kennedy with North Carolina's financial contribution to the construction of the Kennedy Library. In early December, Sanford commuted the sentences of several Chapel Hill protesters. Shortly before leaving office in January 1965, he reached a deal with the Johnson administration for the $25 million environmental research facility to be located at the Research Triangle Park. In his final publicly broadcast address as governor, he asserted, "If our weapon against poverty and bigotry is education, we can conquer all battles and make North Carolina a leader of all the rest of the nation." He was succeeded as Governor of North Carolina by Moore on January 8, 1965.
Immediate post-gubernatorial career
By the time his term was over, Sanford was very unpopular in North Carolina. Discontent over the sales tax on food gradually faded and his favorability ratings improved over subsequent years. After leaving office, he returned to Fayetteville and opened a new law firm in Raleigh with some of his former colleagues. In 1966, he published But What About the People?, a book about his tenure as governor. The following year, he released Storm Over the States, a study of the role of state governments in handling American public issues.
In 1967, Sanford mulled over the possibility of challenging conservative Democrat Sam Ervin for his U.S. Senate seat, who he thought of as a "constitutional racist". He ultimately decided against it after concluding that the contest would divide the Democratic Party and he would lose on account of his civil rights positions. He then agreed to serve as President Johnson's campaign manager in the 1968 presidential election just before Johnson's withdrawal on March 31. Vice President Hubert Humphrey then became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, and considered including Sanford on his ticket as the vice presidential candidate. Sanford attended the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and delivered the speech seconding Humphrey's nomination for the party's endorsement. He was embittered by the disdain with which the delegates treated the outgoing President Johnson, and disapproved of Humphrey's choice of Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine for as his vice presidential candidate. Johnson offered to appoint him United States Secretary of Agriculture for the last few months of his term, but Sanford declined. He subsequently served as chairman for the Citizens for Humphrey-Muskie Committee and in that position helped fundraise for Humphrey's campaign and encouraged the candidate to break from Johnson's views on the controversial Vietnam War. Humphrey lost the election to Republican Richard Nixon.
President of Duke University
Selection
In 1969, the private Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, was wracked by a wave of student unrest over the Vietnam War and civil rights issues. Unable to contain the situation, University President Douglas Knight resigned and the board of trustees began searching for a new president. Sanford heard rumors of his consideration and, though he thought he would like the job, believed it was unlikely that it would ultimately be offered to him. During this time he focused on work at his law firm while turning down several prospective private sector positions, as he wanted to keep his options open in case he wanted to run for public office again. In late October 1969, the university's presidential search committee officially contacted Sanford and began discussing how he would approach the job. On December 13, the committee informed Sanford that he had been chosen for the presidency. He assumed the responsibilities of the job on April 2, 1970, and was officially inaugurated in a ceremony on October 17, 1970. On his first day as university president, Sanford removed a cap on Jewish enrollment, allowing the number of Jewish students to significantly increase over the following years.
Finances
When Sanford assumed the university's presidency he sought to improve the school's status. At the time it was experiencing a budget deficit and suffered from a small endowment. Seeking to increase donations, he sought to increase the school's enrollment from North Carolinian public school students and private school students from elsewhere. He hired Croom Beatty, a boarding school fundraiser, as associate director for admissions and tasked him with finding children at private schools who came from wealthy backgrounds. Croom would canvas the private schools for such students and, if he determined that their enrollment at Duke would financially benefit the university, he would recommend Sanford personally review their application—even if they had earned lower grades or test scores. Sanford also personally recommended the consideration of applications from children of prospective donors who he had learned of from various contacts. He also directed baseball coach Tom Butters to spend the summer of 1970 fundraising and sought out North Carolinian alumni to ask for their financial support. By the time of his departure, the alumni's annual giving total had climbed from $750,000 to almost $6 million, and the school's endowment had grown from $80 million to $200 million.
Relationship with the student body
Since students were generally suspicious of campus administration when Sanford assumed office, he took public actions to try and accommodate their wishes. He declared his opposition to the Vietnam War to assuage student protests and was receptive to a request from antiwar students to invite a war critic to campus. Following the shooting of student protesters at Kent State University in May 1970, Duke students boycotted classes and began planning mass demonstrations to close the school. Determined to prevent the university's operations from being interrupted, he refused to call police on campus and instructed his staff to make themselves available to students to hear their grievances while he went to the protestors' gatherings to engage with them. He encouraged the students to petition the federal government and canvas residents in Durham for their opinions on the war. He objected to Vice President Spiro Agnew's criticism of student protestors in a New York Times op-ed, writing, "The deep troubles of our society do not begin on college campuses, are not bred there, and are not centered there. Instead, our possibilities for resolving these troubles find their greatest hope on college campuses."
Sanford sought to increase student involvement in the running of the university, and hired upperclassmen to work in his office as assistants and researchers. He also designated students to serve as greeters and guides for visiting dignitaries and held social meetings with incoming freshmen at his house, eventually known as "Tea with Terry". From before his tenure students had complained about a lack of representation on the university board of trustees, and after some students refused to leave an early trustee meeting he negotiated a deal with them, whereby they would leave but a reporter from the student newspaper, The Chronicle, would stay to report on the proceedings and a committee would be formed to consider making the meetings public. The committee later agreed to the idea, and in late 1970 Sanford recommended a student representative be designated to sit with the board. The "radical" students on campus were surprised by his accommodating style. Duke graduate and local journalist Mark Pinksy told The New York Times, "He's just plain smarter than the radicals are. He's co-opted the hell out of them."
Regional issues and economic and government reform
In the fall of 1970, Sanford permitted Duke students leave to participate in congressional campaigns. That election season, numerous New South governors were elected across the Southern United States, including Dale Bumpers in Arkansas, Reubin Askew in Florida, John C. West in South Carolina, and Jimmy Carter in Georgia. Sanford held a grudge against Carter for using race-baiting tactics to defeat his friend Carl Sanders in the Democratic primary. These new governors mostly avoided racial rhetoric in office and advocated for governmental reform, triggering renewed national interest in the region. In a speech in May 1971, "The South's time has come after a century of being the whipping boy and the backward child [...] The South can lead the nation, must lead the nation—and all the better, because the nation has never been in greater need of leadership." Sanford suggested that the Southern states act in concert in their efforts to resolve regional issues; he proposed that a regional body be established to assist in coordinating growth and economic development in the South. Working with academics, he assisted in the foundation of the Southern Growth Policies Board on December 16, 1971.
In 1971 Sanford also recruited Joel Fleischman, one of his former aides in the governor's office, to come to Duke and establish a school for public policy. Fleishman created the Institute of Policy Studies and Public Affairs in January 1972. In July 1979 Sanford began a year-long sabbatical and used the time to write A Danger of Democracy, a book which proposed reforming political parties' presidential nomination processes.
Nixon presidential library
In 1981 Sanford entertained the idea of locating Nixon's presidential library and museum at Duke, where it could become a center of research and bolster the university's reputation. Sanford raised the subject with Nixon during a visit to the former president at Nixon's New York City office on July 28, 1981, and the former president was receptive to the idea. While Sanford tried to win over the faculty to his idea—many of whom disliked Nixon and were worried about his scandal-ridden reputation damaging the university—the media began reporting that Duke was a prospective site for the library. Opposition from professors mounted as they expressed concerns that the museum would become little more than a monument to Nixon while the most sensitive and valuable documents of his public career would not be kept in the library. Some called for Sanford's resignation. The Duke Academic Council, a governing body representing the university's faculty, voted to eliminate the museum from the offer and scale down the planned size of the library. Discouraged, Nixon declined Sanford's offer and established his library in Yorba Linda, California. Sanford originally planned to retire in 1982, but decided to stay longer to finish overseeing some developments and let the acrimony of the Nixon library debate fade. He officially resigned on July 4, 1985 and was replaced by H. Keith H. Brodie, his preferred successor.
Concurrent political activities
Upon being invested as president of Duke, Sanford told a New York Times reporter that he had decided against any state-related political responsibilities through 1972, but had not pledged similarly about a national office, saying, "I won't campaign for it, but I've never made a Sherman-like statement that I wouldn't accept it." Privately, he maintained contact with some of his former political acquaintances such as Bennett, but felt that if he became too politically involved the board of trustees would fire him. Sanford believed that Nixon would be re-elected to the United States presidency and ruled out the possibility of seeking the Democratic nomination in the 1972 presidential primary. That January, several Duke students approached him to request his assent to a petition to put his name on the Democratic ballot, feeling that the slate of candidates in the primary was weak. Sanford himself thought Senator Edmund Muskie—who was gaining endorsements from party stalwarts—was an unremarkable candidate and was worried that liberals were uniting behind Senator George McGovern, and had encouraged Humphrey to re-seek nomination.
Sanford figured that the board of trustees would solve his dilemma by forcing him to stop the petition drive. The board argued over the affair, but ultimately decided to let Sanford launch a candidacy. His friends thought a presidential campaign was ill-advised, and North Carolina Governor Bob Scott—who had already pledged his support to Muskie—was angered when he learned of Sanford possibly entering the race. Sanford claimed to have firmly decided to contest the nomination after seeing Muskie's public reaction to the Canuck letter. According to biographers Howard E. Covington Jr. and Marion Ellis, "If there was anything that moved Sanford to make the leap in 1972, it was probably his desire to challenge Wallace and show the nation that all Southern politicians were not demagogues." George Wallace was the Governor of Alabama and an avowed racial segregationist. Sanford felt that Wallace did not truly believe in segregation and employed race-baiting tactics as an opportunity to gain votes. He later said of Wallace, "I always thought George was just a pure hypocrite [...] George saw it as just a great game, just another issue to be played, and he played it the way it was an advantage to play it." He publicly declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the presidency on March 8. He stated his intention to stay on Duke's campus and campaign on the weekends to aim to get the support of 100 delegates before the Democratic convention.
Some media response was positive, but the press was generally skeptical of Sanford's candidacy. He struggled to gain media attention, and ran on a platform of eliminating tax loopholes for rich people, establishing price controls on food, increasing Social Security payments by 25 percent, supporting equal rights for women, creating a national health insurance plan, and devolution of power from the federal government to the states. While focusing most of his efforts on North Carolina, he also built a small national campaign organization. One poll showed Wallace in first place in North Carolina with 33 percent of the vote and Sanford with 28 percent; the latter was encouraged, but anxious that Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm would draw away black voters he needed to overcome Wallace. On the night before the election, he conducted a television appearance where voters asked him questions about his platform. Responding to a question about the seriousness of his candidacy for the presidency or if he was seeking a position to bargain for another office, he said, "I'd rather be president of Duke University than vice president and furthermore I'd rather be unemployed than be in the cabinet."
Wallace won the North Carolina with over 40 percent of the total, securing 408,000 votes. Sanford received 304,000, while Chisholm got 61,000. Sanford's friend Sam Poole said that the loss "was really a very low point in his life." Despite the setback, he decided to continue his campaign to the convention in Miami. He managed only a fifth-place finish with 77.5 delegate votes. Undeterred, Sanford began preparations two years later for a run for the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. Announcing his candidacy on June 1, 1975, he juggled campaign appearances with his obligations as president of Duke. While campaigning in Massachusetts, he suffered sharp pains and was diagnosed with a heart murmur. On January 25, Sanford withdrew from the primaries, the first Democrat to do so that year. He was left near bankruptcy by his abortive candidacy, though his friend Paul Vick later assisted him in managing his finances and recouping some of his wealth. He thereafter refocused his time on running the university, and in 1977 he rejected President Jimmy Carter's offer to appoint him United States Ambassador to France. After retiring as president of Duke University, Sanford made an unsuccessful run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1985, losing to Paul G. Kirk by a vote of 203–150.
Senate career
1986 campaign and election
In late 1985 Sanford began consulting his friends on the possibility of running in the 1986 senatorial elections. Sanford declared his candidacy in January 1986. The announcement surprised and embittered his longtime friend and political ally Lauch Faircloth, who had wanted to run for the seat with Sanford's support and was angered by rumors that Sanford had denigrated his own chances in an election. After the misunderstanding, Faircloth and Sanford did not speak with one another until shortly before the latter's death. Sanford won the Democratic primary with 409,394 votes, easily defeating the nine other candidates and marking the first time he had won a statewide election since 1960. His opponent in the general election was Republican U.S. House Representative Jim Broyhill as the incumbent senator, Republican John P. East, had declared his intention to retire. After East committed suicide on June 29, 1986, Broyhill was temporarily appointed to the seat on July 3, pending the election to fill it on November 4. During the campaign Sanford stressed his accomplishments as governor and his military service. Critics of Sanford primarily focused on three areas: his promotion of opportunities for minorities, "tax-and-spend" education funding, and his anti-poverty efforts. Sanford initially maintained a positive campaign, but attacked Broyhill as "no friend of education" and criticised his failure to minimize President Ronald Reagan's free trade policies which hurt the textiles industry after Broyhill released a television ad that condemned his imposition of the sales tax on food while serving as governor. Sanford defeated Broyhill by three percentage points in the November election earning about 60,000 more votes, securing victory in the contest to serve the last months of East's term and the subsequent six-year term. He was sworn in to office on December 10 by his friend and former law partner Judge James Dickson Phillips Jr. on the steps of the United States Capitol. He was sworn in again to the full six-year term on January 6, 1987.
Tenure
Sanford felt uncomfortable in the Senate after being used to holding executive offices, writing, "We get so little done for all the energy we expend." He served on multiple Senate committees: Select Committee on Ethics (Chair); Special Committee on Aging; Budget; Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs including the Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy and Subcommittee on Securities; and Foreign Relations including the Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (Chair), Subcommittee on African Affairs, and Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere and Peace Corps Affairs. As was custom among members of the majority party, Sanford presided over sessions of the Senate on several occasions. He stayed in an apartment near the Capitol, and usually reported to his office by 8:00 am and worked until returning home later in the evening. He usually returned to his house in Durham on the weekends.
During his Senate campaign, Sanford criticized President Reagan's policy towards the Contra War in Nicaragua, as the federal government funneled American financial support to the right-aligned Contras while they waged an insurgency against the leftist Sandanista government. Sanford hoped to propose an alternative solution to the conflict based upon the Marshall Plan. In February 1986, Sanford and Senator Chris Dodd traveled to Central America to study the issue. At the same time President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica was hosting a multilateral conference with representatives of nearby countries troubled by the conflict in Nicaragua. Sanford proposed to Arias that after the war ended a multinational working group be created to plan for economic redevelopment of the region. Arias was receptive to the idea, and soon after Sanford returned to the United States he delivered his first major speech before the Senate, supporting a resolution commending Arias' initiatives to host negotiations and end the Nicaraguan war. The resolution passed, 97 votes to 1. In June, Sanford announced the creation of an International Commission for Central American Recovery and Development to create an outline for regional development under the coordination of Duke University's Center for International Development Research. As with the North Carolina Fund, Sanford secured backing from private philanthropic organizations to fund the body's work. By the time the group had its first meeting in December, he had recruited 47 members including diplomats, scholars, and economists. Though Sanford was not a member of the body, it became known as the "Sanford Commission" for his role in its creation. He repeatedly returned to Central America to tour Nicaragua and observe Arias' peace process.
The commission published its report in 1989, recommending action taken to ensure human rights and the fulfillment of the economic necessities of the region's population. The document was endorsed by five Central American presidents. Sanford believed the commission's work hastened the end of the Contra War and reoriented local focus on economic recovery, reflecting, "I consider it the most significant thing I did in Washington." Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega personally thanked Sanford for his efforts, and he was commended by his Senate colleagues Bob Dole and John Kerry. Sanford proposed a bill to appropriate federal funds to the commission's use, but it was not acted upon for years and was rivaled by North Carolina's senior U.S. Senator, Jesse Helms, who sought to attach statements to it calling on Central America to embrace free enterprise initiatives. Sanford found Helms' actions irksome, and though his bill finally passed the Senate in September 1991, the money it appropriated was never handed over.
Sanford kept a journal during his Senate tenure, and often wrote about his irritation with the body's deference to member seniority instead of better ideas, the existence of incomprehensible legislative rules, and jurisdictional feuds between committee chairs. He also perceived an increase in partisanship and a diminishing willingness for compromise. He strongly disliked Helms, writing, "I think his service in the Senate has been largely of zero value to North Carolina...He has a negative attitude about everything, and it is very difficult to find anything up here that he has done that has any lasting value." The two usually maintained cordial relations, though in one instance Helms angrily denounced Sanford to the press after the latter made a joke at Helms' expense during a committee hearing. Helms later apologized.
From early on in his tenure Sanford was troubled by the Reagan administration's growing deficit spending and Congress' toleration of it. He crafted an "Honest Budget Bill" that mandated a balanced budget, introduced taxes to increase revenue, and separated the Social Security Trust Fund from other government trusts. A few of his proposals were ultimately incorporated into other measures. During the contentious Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination, Sanford was chosen by Senate Democrats to deliver a televised address explaining their opposition to Bork's nomination. Sanford stated that Bork was more interested in affirming his own personal opinions that conducting proper jurisprudence, and when the nomination came to a full vote before the Senate, Sanford voted against his nomination.
As a senator, Sanford was involved in efforts to recruit Democratic candidates for the 1988 United States presidential election. After unsuccessfully attempting to recruit Arkansas Senator Dale Bumpers and New York Governor Mario Cuomo, he endorsed Tennessee Senator Al Gore's campaign, privately dismissing Jesse Jackson for running a "purely racist campaign". Gore later dropped out and Sanford dutifully backed Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, though he found Dukakis' campaign staff arrogant and uncooperative. Dukakis lost the election to Republican George H. W. Bush, and Democrats performed poorly in North Carolina elections, leaving Sanford as the leading elected North Carolina Democrat. In the contests' aftermath he increasingly bemoaned the leftward lean of the national Democratic Party, objecting to Ron Brown's assumption of the chair of the Democratic National Committee and expressing concern that the Democrats were "perceived by far too many people as being the black man's party", thus losing support from moderate whites. Sanford wrote in his journal that "the lingering race prejudice does, indeed, drive a great many white people away from the Democratic Party".
Sanford was initially hopeful that he could influence policy with the incoming Bush administration, but quickly tired of Bush, becoming outraged with his nomination of John Tower as Secretary of Defense and upset with—in his view—Bush's focus on trivial affairs meant to garner him short-term electoral support rather than provide long-term benefit to the country. Following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the conviction of a man who had burned a United States Flag as an act of protest, Bush and congressional Republicans proposed a Flag Desecration Amendment to the United States Constitution that would make it illegal for a person to burn American flags. Sanford thought Bush was pursuing a "demagogic, vote-getting, low-principled course" and—though he personally disagreed with flag burning—he thought that such an amendment ran contrary to the ideals of political freedom included in the Bill of Rights. On October 17, 1989, Sanford delivered a speech in the Senate on the issue, saying that a prohibition of flag burning diminished the right to protest and weakened the Bill of Rights. He thought the speech was the best of his time in the Senate, and once he finished John Danforth, a cosponsor of the amendment, rose to say he had not thoughtfully considered the implications of the measure and would vote against it. The amendment ultimately failed to garner the necessary support of two-thirds of the body to pass.
By 1990, Sanford began having doubts about his future and about running for reelection. Reflecting on his past four years in the Senate, he wrote, "Its usefulness, its contribution to the nation and the state...was marginal." Sanford had a liberal voting record in comparison to his Democratic colleagues from the South, and it was consistently more liberal than that of any of his North Carolinian predecessors, being given an American Conservative Union rating of 12 percent.
Following Iraq's August Invasion of Kuwait, Bush moved military forces to the Persian Gulf region. Sanford preferred to impose sanctions against Iraq rather than pursue a military solution, saying to the Senate, "There is no reason for us to get involved in a shooting, killing war to take Kuwait." He became a leading opponent of American involvement in the ensuing Gulf War while at the same time growing more resolved to retire from the Senate. Several weeks later he became surprised to hear that Faircloth had switched his party registration to Republican and was preparing to challenge Sanford in the 1992 election for his Senate seat. His efforts to recruit his own successor candidate failed. In September, Sanford abruptly changed his mind and decided to run for reelection, saying, "I could find no decent way to be a lame duck."
1992 campaign
Sanford officially announced his campaign for reelection on December 2, 1991. He faced no opposition in the Democratic primary, while Faircloth, enjoying substantial backing from Helms' National Congressional Club, won the Republican primary. Both men pledged to run issues-oriented campaigns and avoid personal attacks. In June 1992 he became afflicted with illness and was admitted to Duke Medical Center for treatment of a heart valve infection. This delayed his attempts to campaign, but he returned to work in the Senate in late July. Sanford was heavily involved in the direction of his campaign and pledged to tour all 100 North Carolina counties. Early polling suggested he enjoyed a large lead over Faircloth. Faircloth attacked Sanford as beholden to special interests and an advocate of big government and higher taxes. Sanford countered by portraying his opponent as a conservative hard-liner. During a televised debate in September Sanford countered Faircloth's accusations that he was a spendthrift by pointing to his efforts at budget reform.
By October Sanford's heart infection had grown more serious and he underwent surgery to replace the troubled valve, temporarily preventing him from campaigning. He was released from the hospital two weeks later, but he was noticeably thinner and the surgery had risen public doubts about his health. Without his leadership during the interim, his campaign lost initiative to Faircloth, who questioned his views on the Gulf War and characterized him as a Washington, D.C. insider. On November 3, 1992, Faircloth won the election by a 100,000-vote margin, though Democrat Bill Clinton won national election as United States President, while Jim Hunt was reelected Governor of North Carolina. Sanford celebrated the overall outcome at the North Raleigh Hilton Hotel, declaring, "This is a great night for the Democratic Party. We have the nation on the right track again. We have the state on the right track."
Later life and death
Shortly after the Senate race, Sanford was hired by Duke University to teach a course on state government. In 1993 he formed a law firm with former South Carolina governor Robert Evander McNair, but he eventually withdrew and formed another firm with former North Carolina governor James Holshouser in Raleigh. Sanford also finished his last book, Outlive Your Enemies: Grow Old Gracefully, a narrative about aging and health, and began work on a novel about a journalist addressing major issues of the 20th century. He supported several business ventures and remained in contact with various politicians, including President Clinton.
In December 1997 Sanford went to Duke Medical Center after experiencing a low-grade fever for several days, fearing he had a heart infection. Doctors discovered cancer in his esophagus and liver and ruled that it was inoperable. He died on April 18, 1998, at his home. His funeral was held four days later at Duke Chapel, and it was attended by 17 U.S. Senators, four former governors, 100 members of the General Assembly, and the North Carolina Council of State. Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division acted as an honor guard. Sanford was entombed in the chapel's crypt.
Legacy
Sanford was one of the key figures of the New South, a historical era of social modernization in the region. Journalist John Drescher dubbed him "the first New South governor" while George Wallace called him "the symbol of the New South." Journalist Rob Christensen credited him with helping to "set a tone of moderation in North Carolina in the sixties". He is remembered in North Carolina as the "education governor"; historians and journalists have often cited Sanford's actions as governor as the source of North Carolina's historical policy focus on reforming education. In recognition of his efforts in education and in other areas, a 1981 Harvard University survey named him one of the 10 best governors of the 20th century. A study conducted by political scientist Larry Sabato concluded that Sanford was one of the best 12 governors to serve in the United States between 1950 and 1975. Historian William D. Goldsmith wrote, "Terry Sanford tested the limits of what a governor—or a politician period—could do in North Carolina of the early 1960s to advance human development without federal intervention." Journalist David Stout characterized Sanford as a "contradictory politician" and a man who "lack[ed] burning desire."
Political scientist Tom Eamon dubbed Sanford "North Carolina's most celebrated liberal politician". Sanford served as a role model to a number of Southern governors, including his protégé Jim Hunt of North Carolina, William Winter of Mississippi, and Bill Clinton of Arkansas. When Parris Glendening was campaigning to become Governor of Maryland in 1994, he promised voters that would model his administration after Sanford's. Upon Sanford's death Clinton—then serving as President of the United States—said, "His work and his influence literally changed the face and future of the South, making him one of the most influential Americans of the last 50 years." Senator John Edwards said that Sanford was his "political hero". Duke University renamed the institute in public policy the Sanford School of Public Policy. Fayetteville Senior High School was renamed Terry Sanford High School in his honor in 1968. The Terry Sanford Federal Building and Courthouse in Raleigh was named in honor of Sanford in 1999.
Notes
Citations
General references
- read online, registration required
- Profile at Google Books
External links
Guide to the Terry Sanford Papers, 1926–1996, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.
Oral History Interviews with Terry Sanford , , , , from Oral Histories of the American South
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423161 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard%20Hot%20100 | Billboard Hot 100 | The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), online streaming, and radio play in the U.S.
A new chart is compiled and released online to the public by Billboard website on Tuesdays but post-dated to the following Saturday, when the printed magazine first reaches newsstands. The weekly tracking period for sales is currently Friday–Thursday, after being changed in July 2015. It was initially Monday–Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991. This tracking period also applies to compiling online streaming data. Radio airplay is readily available on a real-time basis, unlike sales figures and streaming, but is also tracked on the same Friday–Thursday cycle, effective with the chart dated July 17, 2021. Previously, radio was tracked Monday–Sunday and, before July 2015, Wednesday–Tuesday.
The first number-one song of the Billboard Hot 100 was "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson, on August 4, 1958. As of the issue for the week ending on November 4, 2023, the Billboard Hot 100 has had 1,158 different number-one entries. The current number-one song on the chart is "Cruel Summer" by Taylor Swift.
History
The first chart published by Billboard was "Last Week's Ten Best Sellers Among the Popular Songs", a list of best-selling sheet music, in July 1913. Other charts listed popular song performances in theatres and recitals. In 1928, "Popular Numbers Featured by Famous Singers and Leaders" appeared, which added radio performances to in-person performances. On January 4, 1936, Billboard magazine published "Ten Best Records for Week Ending", which recorded the 10 top selling records of three leading record companies as reported by the companies themselves. In October 1938, a review list, "The Week's Best Records", was retitled "The Billboard Record Buying Guide" by incorporating airplay and sheet music sales, which would eventually become the first trade survey of record popularity. This led to the full-page "Billboard Music Popularity Chart" for the week ending July 20, 1940, and published in the July 27 issue, with lists covering jukebox play, retail sales, sheet music sales, and radio play. Listed were 10 songs of the national "Best Selling Retail Records", which was the fore-runner of today's pop chart, with "I'll Never Smile Again" by Tommy Dorsey its first number one.
Starting on March 24, 1945, Billboards lead popularity chart was the Honor Roll of Hits. This chart ranked the most popular songs regardless of performer (it combined different versions of the same song by different artists) based on record and sheet sales, disk jockey, and jukebox performances as determined by Billboards weekly nationwide survey. At the start of the rock era in 1955, there were three charts that measured songs by individual metrics:
Best Sellers in Stores was the best seller chart first established in July 1940. This chart ranked the biggest selling singles in retail stores, as reported by merchants surveyed throughout the country (20 to 50 positions).
Most Played by Jockeys was Billboards original airplay chart. It ranked the most played songs on United States radio stations, as reported by radio DJs and radio stations (20 to 25 positions).
Most Played in Jukeboxes ranked the most played songs in jukeboxes across the United States (20 positions). This was one of the main outlets of measuring song popularity with the younger generation of music listeners, as many radio stations resisted adding rock and roll music to their playlists for many years.
Although officially all three charts had equal "weight" in terms of their importance, Billboard retrospectively considers the Best Sellers in Stores chart when referencing a song's performance before the creation of the Hot 100. In its issue of November 12, 1955, Billboard published The Top 100 for the first time (for the survey weeks ending October 26 and November 2). The Top 100 combined all aspects of a single's performance (sales, airplay and jukebox activity), based on a point system that typically gave sales (purchases) more weight than radio airplay. The first No. 1 in that chart was "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" by The Four Aces. The Best Sellers in Stores, Most Played by Jockeys and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts continued to be published concurrently with the new Top 100 chart.
On June 17, 1957, Billboard discontinued the Most Played in Jukeboxes chart, as the popularity of jukeboxes waned and radio stations incorporated more and more rock-oriented music into their playlists. The week of July 28, 1958, had the final Most Played by Jockeys and Top 100 charts, both of which had Perez Prado's instrumental version of "Patricia" ascending to the top.
On August 4, 1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart: the Hot 100, with "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson its first No. 1. The Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13, 1958.
The Hot 100 was created by journalists Tom Noonan, Paul Ackerman, and Seymour Stein; Stein did not recall who chose the name.
The Billboard Hot 100 is still the standard by which a song's popularity is measured in the United States. The Hot 100 is ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data compiled by Nielsen Soundscan (both at retail and digitally) and streaming activity provided by online music sources.
There are several component charts that contribute to the overall calculation of the Hot 100. The most significant ones are:
Radio Songs: (per Billboard) approximately 1,000 stations, "composed of adult contemporary, R&B, hip hop, country, rock, gospel, Latin and Christian formats, digitally monitored twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Charts are ranked by number of gross audience impressions, computed by cross-referencing exact times of radio airplay with Arbitron listener data."
Digital Songs: Digital sales are tracked by Nielsen SoundScan and are included as part of a title's sales points.
Streaming Songs: a collaboration between Billboard, Nielsen SoundScan and National Association of Recording Merchandisers which measures the top streamed radio songs, on-demand songs and videos on leading online music services.
Compilation
The tracking week for sales, streaming and airplay begins on Friday and ends on Thursday (airplay used to have a tracking week from Monday to Sunday, but effective with the chart dated July 17, 2021, the week was adjusted to align with the other two metrics). A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Tuesday. Each chart is post-dated with the "week-ending" issue date four days after the charts are refreshed online (i.e., the following Saturday). For example:
Friday, January 1 – tracking-week begins for sales, streaming and airplay
Thursday, January 7 – tracking-week ends for sales, streaming and airplay
Tuesday, January 12 – new chart released, with issue post-dated Saturday, January 16
Policy changes
The methods and policies by which this data is obtained and compiled have changed many times throughout the chart's history.
Although the advent of a singles music chart spawned chart historians and chart-watchers and greatly affected pop culture and produced countless bits of trivia, the main purpose of the Hot 100 is to aid those within the music industry: to reflect the popularity of the "product" (the singles, the albums, etc.) and to track the trends of the buying public. Billboard has (many times) changed its methodology and policies to give the most precise and accurate reflection of what is popular. A very basic example of this would be the ratio given to sales and airplay. During the Hot 100's early history, singles were the leading way by which people bought music. At times, when singles sales were robust, more weight was given to a song's retail points than to its radio airplay.
As the decades passed, the recording industry concentrated more on album sales than singles sales. Musicians eventually expressed their creative output in the form of full-length albums rather than singles, and by the 1990s many record companies stopped releasing singles altogether (see Album Cuts, below). Eventually, a song's airplay points were weighted more so than its sales. Billboard has adjusted the sales/airplay ratio many times to more accurately reflect the true popularity of songs.
Double-sided singles
Billboard has also changed its Hot 100 policy regarding "two-sided singles" several times. The pre-Hot 100 chart "Best Sellers in Stores" listed popular A- and-B-sides together, with the side that was played most often (based on its other charts) listed first. One of the most notable of these, but far from the only one, was Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" / "Hound Dog". During the Presley single's chart run, top billing was switched back and forth between the two sides several times. But on the concurrent "Most Played in Juke Boxes", "Most Played by Jockeys" and the "Top 100", the two songs were listed separately, as was true of all songs. With the initiation of the Hot 100 in 1958, A- and-B-sides charted separately, as they had on the former Top 100.
Starting with the Hot 100 chart for the week ending November 29, 1969, this rule was altered; if both sides received significant airplay, they were listed together. This started to become a moot point by 1972, as most major record labels solidified a trend they had started in the 1960s by putting the same song on both sides of the singles provided to radio.
More complex issues began to arise as the typical A-and-B-side format of singles gave way to 12 inch singles and maxi-singles, many of which contained more than one B-side. Further problems arose when, in several cases, a B-side would eventually overtake the A-side in popularity, thus prompting record labels to release a new single, featuring the former B-side as the A-side, along with a "new" B-side.
The inclusion of album cuts on the Hot 100 put the double-sided hit issues to rest permanently.
Album cuts
As many Hot 100 chart policies have been modified over the years, one rule always remained constant: songs were not eligible to enter the Hot 100 unless they were available to purchase as a single. However, on December 5, 1998, the Hot 100 changed from being a "singles" chart to a "songs" chart. During the 1990s, a growing trend in the music industry was to promote songs to radio without ever releasing them as singles. It was claimed by major record labels that singles were cannibalizing album sales, so they were slowly phased out. During this period, accusations began to fly of chart manipulation as labels would hold off on releasing a single until airplay was at its absolute peak, thus prompting a top ten or, in some cases, a number-one debut. In many cases, a label would delete a single from its catalog after only one week, thus allowing the song to enter the Hot 100, make a high debut and then slowly decline in position as the one-time production of the retail single sold out.
It was during this period that several popular mainstream hits never charted on the Hot 100, or charted well after their airplay had declined. During the period that they were not released as singles, the songs were not eligible to chart. Many of these songs dominated the Hot 100 Airplay chart for extended periods of time:
1995 The Rembrandts: "I'll Be There for You" (number one for eight weeks)
1996 No Doubt: "Don't Speak" (number one for 16 weeks)
1997 Sugar Ray featuring Super Cat: "Fly" (number one for six weeks)
1997 Will Smith: "Men in Black" (number one for four weeks)
1997 The Cardigans: "Lovefool" (number two for eight weeks)
1998 Natalie Imbruglia: "Torn" (number one for 11 weeks)
1998 Goo Goo Dolls: "Iris" (number one for 18 weeks)
As debate and conflicts occurred more and more often, Billboard finally answered the requests of music industry artists and insiders to include airplay-only songs (or "album cuts") in the Hot 100, while the retail component was reduced from 40% to 25%.
EPs
Extended play (EP) releases were listed by Billboard on the Hot 100 and in pre-Hot 100 charts (Top 100) until the mid-to-late 1960s. With the growing popularity of albums, it was decided to move EPs (which typically contain four to six tracks) from the Hot 100 to the Billboard 200, where they are included to this day.
Digital downloads, online streaming and bundles
Since February 12, 2005, the Billboard Hot 100 tracks paid digital downloads from such internet services as iTunes, Musicmatch, and Rhapsody. Billboard initially started tracking downloads in 2003 with the Hot Digital Tracks chart. However, these downloads did not count towards the Hot 100 and that chart (as opposed to Hot Digital Songs) counted each version of a song separately. This was the first major overhaul of the Hot 100's chart formula since December 1998.
The change in methodology has shaken up the chart considerably, with some songs debuting on the chart strictly with robust online sales and others making drastic leaps. In recent years, several songs have been able to achieve 80-to-90 position jumps in a single week as their digital components were made available at online music stores. Since 2006, the all-time record for the biggest single-week upward movement was broken nine times.
In the issue dated August 11, 2007, Billboard began incorporating weekly data from streaming media and on-demand services into the Hot 100. The first two major companies to provide their statistics to Nielsen BDS on a weekly basis were AOL Music and Yahoo! Music. On March 24, 2012, Billboard premiered its On-Demand Songs chart, which ranks web radio streams from services such as Spotify, as well as on-demand audio titles. Its data was then incorporated into the equation that compiles the Hot 100, and this was expanded to a broader Streaming Songs chart in January 2013. In February 2013, U.S. views for a song on YouTube were added to the Hot 100 formula. "Harlem Shake" was the first song to reach number one after the changes were made.
In July 2020, Billboard announced that they would no longer allow sales of physical/digital bundles to be reported as digital sales. This refers to songs being bought along with merchandise, either from an artists website or through another vendor. The magazine stated that this was a tactic generally used by certain artists to boost their chart positions. Instead, such physical releases are now only counted when they are shipped to the consumer, rendering the tactic "ineffectual".
Remixes
A growing trend early in the first decade of the 21st century was to issue a song as a "remix" that was so drastically different in structure and lyrical content from its original version that it was essentially a whole new song. Under normal circumstances, airplay points from a song's album version, "radio" mix and/or dance music remix, etc. were all combined and factored into the song's performance on the Hot 100, as the structure, lyrics and melody remained intact. Criticisms began when songs were being completely re-recorded to the point that they no longer resembled the original recording. The first such example of this scenario is Jennifer Lopez's "I'm Real". Originally entering the Hot 100 in its album version, a "remix" was issued in the midst of its chart run that featured rapper Ja Rule. This new version proved to be far more popular than the album version and the track was propelled to number one.
To address this issue, Billboard now separates airplay points from a song's original version and its remix, if the remix is determined to be a "new song". Since administering this new chart rule, several songs have charted twice, normally credited as "Part 1" and "Part 2". The remix rule is still in place.
Recurrents
Billboard, in an effort to allow the chart to remain as current as possible and to give representation to new and developing artists and tracks, has (since 1991) removed titles that have reached certain criteria regarding its current rank and number of weeks on the chart. Recurrent criteria have been modified several times and currently (), a song is permanently moved to "recurrent status" if it has spent 20 weeks on the Hot 100 and fallen below position number 50. Additionally, descending songs are removed from the chart if ranking below number 25 after 52 weeks. Exceptions are made to re-releases and sudden resurgence in popularity of tracks that have taken a very long time to gain mainstream success. These rare cases are handled on a case-by-case basis and ultimately determined by Billboards chart managers and staff. Christmas songs have been a regular presence on the Hot 100 each December since the relaxation of recurrent rules, culminating in Mariah Carey's 1994 recording "All I Want for Christmas Is You" reaching No. 1 on the chart in December 2019.
Adjustment of tracking week
Billboard altered its tracking-week for sales, streaming and radio airplay in order to conform to a new Global Release Date, which now falls on Fridays in all major-market territories (United States product was formerly released on Tuesdays before June 2015). This modified tracking schedule took effect in the issue dated July 25, 2015.
Year-end charts
Billboards "chart year" runs from the first week of December to the final week in November. This altered calendar allows for Billboard to calculate year-end charts and release them in time for its final print issue in the last week of December.
Before Nielsen SoundScan, year-end singles charts were calculated by an inverse-point system based solely on a song's performance on the Hot 100 (for example, a song would be given one point for a week spent at position 100, two points for a week spent at position 99 and so forth, up to 100 points for each week spent at number one). Other factors including the total weeks a song spent on the chart and at its peak position were calculated into its year-end total.
After Billboard began obtaining sales and airplay information from Nielsen SoundScan, the year-end charts are now calculated by a very straightforward cumulative total of yearlong sales, streaming, and airplay points. This gives a more accurate picture of any given year's most popular tracks, as the points accrued by one song during its week at number one in March might be less than those accrued by another song reaching number three in January. Songs at the peak of their popularity at the time of the November/December chart-year cutoff many times end up ranked on the following year's chart as well, as their cumulative points are split between the two chart-years, but often are ranked lower than they would have been had the peak occurred in a single year.
Use in media
The Hot 100 served for many years as the data source for the weekly radio countdown show American Top 40. This relationship ended on November 30, 1991, as American Top 40 started using the airplay-only side of the Hot 100 (then called Top 40 Radio Monitor). The ongoing splintering of Top 40 radio in the early 1990s led stations to lean into specific formats, meaning that practically no station would play the wide array of genres that typically composed each weekly Hot 100 chart.
An artist or band's ability to have hits in the Hot 100 across multiple decades is recognized as a sign of longevity and being able to adapt to changing musical styles. Only five artists had a Hot 100 Top 40 hit in each of the four decades from the 1980s through the 2010s: Michael Jackson, Madonna, "Weird Al" Yankovic, U2, and Kenny G. Mariah Carey is the first artist to have a number-one single in four different decades.
Similar charts
A new chart, the Pop 100, was created by Billboard in February 2005 to answer criticism that the Hot 100 at the time was too dominated by hip hop and R&B. It was discontinued in June 2009 due to the charts becoming increasingly similar.
The Canadian Hot 100 was launched June 16, 2007. Like the Hot 100 chart, it uses sales and airplay tracking compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and BDS.
The Billboard Japan Hot 100 was launched in the issue dated May 31, 2008, using the same methodologies as the Hot 100 charts for the U.S. and Canada, using sales and airplay data from SoundScan Japan and radio tracking service Plantech.
The Vietnamese edition of Hot 100, Billboard Vietnam Hot 100, was launched on January 14, 2022.
See also
American Top 40
Bestseller
Billboard charts
Billboard Global 200
Billboard Music Awards
Chart-topper
List of artists who reached number one in the United States
List of best-selling music artists
List of Billboard Hot 100 chart achievements and milestones
List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of the 2020s
List of Billboard Hot 100 top-ten singles
List of Billboard number-one singles
Single certifications
Rolling Stone Top 100
Notes
References
Bronson, Fred. Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, 5th Edition ()
Feldman, Christopher G. The Billboard Book of No. 2 Singles ()
Whitburn, Joel. Top Pop Singles 1955–2008, 12 Edition ()
Whitburn, Joel. The Billboard Pop Charts, 1955–1959 ()
Whitburn, Joel. The Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Sixties ()
Whitburn, Joel. The Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Seventies ()
Whitburn, Joel. The Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Eighties ()
Whitburn, Joel. The Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Nineties ()
External links
Hot 100
Top lists
1958 establishments in the United States |
423165 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent%20Radio%20News | Independent Radio News | Independent Radio News provides a service of news bulletins, audio and copy to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom and beyond. The managing director, Tim Molloy, succeeded long-term MD John Perkins in November 2009. Perkins had been MD of IRN since 1989. IRN's shareholders are Global (54.6%), Bauer Radio (22.3%), ITN (19.7%) and The Wireless Group (3.4%).
History and background
IRN launched on 8 October 1973, with the first bulletin read at 06:00 by Australian newsreader Ken Guy on the opening morning of Britain's first commercial radio station, LBC. IRN was based at LBC studios in Gough Square, just off Fleet Street in Central London. The service was funded by cash payments from subscribing radio stations. On 5 October 1992, ITN took over the running of the IRN operation from LBC and IRN relocated into ITN's headquarters on Gray's Inn Road in London.
Until the early 1990s, stations took the hourly bulletins by opting into LBC's normal broadcast output. One second of silence was provided before and after the bulletins on LBC to allow stations to opt in and out.
Computer technology was introduced in 1985 and in 1987, the Newslink advertising scheme (a national single advertisement, broadcast by IRN immediately adjacent to the news bulletin) was launched which funded the service and provided cash dividends of the surplus to client stations. Newslink adverts are broadcast by client stations around weekday bulletins from 06:00 to 11:00 and 13:00, and at weekends between 07:00 and 12:00. Sales of Newslink commercial spots are managed by Global.
In 1989, satellite distribution of bulletins and audio was introduced, and this was also the year that IRN and LBC moved into new studios on Hammersmith Road in West London. The satellite service was managed by Satellite Media Services who were based on the ground floor of Euston Tower. In 1991, the Sunrise Radio IRN service was introduced. The hourly news bulletins were broadcast on Sunrise Radio's channel on the Astra satellite, in a move designed to serve smaller commercial, RSL and hospital stations who struggled to afford the expensive standard IRN satellite equipment. This continued until 31 August 2004, upon which the service moved to a dedicated channel on the Hot Bird 4 satellite at 13.0° East. From March 2009, bulletins are broadcast via the main Sky Digital Astra satellite at 28.2° East.
In 2001, audio cuts began to be distributed via the Internet and from 2 October 2005, audio cuts and packages ceased being distributed via the satellite audio channels and switched entirely to the IRN Net Newsroom Internet system.
IRN bulletins had a major overhaul in September 2002. The bulletin outcue for many years, "Independent Radio News", was dropped and all bulletins were of three minutes duration. All IRN branding was removed, and the outcue reverted to a time check: "It's three minutes past [the hour]." The three-minute bulletin, known as IRN 180, was broadcast on the IRN1 channel and the Astra (Sunrise Radio) feed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A shorter 90-second bulletin, known as IRN 90, was introduced on the IRN2 channel comprising stories aimed at younger, pop music stations. This was broadcast on the hour from 19:00 to 06:00 on weekdays, and from 14:00 to 06:00 at weekends. This replaced the previous 60-second overnight bulletin service.
IRN launched its first bespoke bulletin service in September 2003, with an hourly bulletin service for Magic 105.4 and a breakfast news service for Kiss 100.
On 1 October 2003, satellite distribution of the main IRN service switched from SMS and the Intelsat 707 satellite at 1.0° West to Kingston Communications and the Sirius 4 satellite at 4.8° East. On 1 January 2021, the service was switched to Eutelsat 9B satellite at 9.0° East.
In June 2008, IRN started supplying a feed of news, sport and entertainment stories and video to the websites of client radio stations.
During the ITN era, most audio came from ITV News and Channel 4 News television bulletins. Client stations contributed audio to the service and IRN also had agreements to use audio from CNN Radio and Sky Sports News. On 15 October 2008, IRN announced that Sky News Radio was to replace ITN as its contracted news supplier from March 2009 on a three-year contract. The final ITN-produced bulletin was broadcast at 13:00 on Tuesday 2 March 2009 and was read by Moira Alderson. The bulletin finished: "... From ITN this is Independent Radio News".
Sky News Radio's first bulletin was at 14:00 on the same day. The bulletin was read by Ursula Hansford, and was simulcast on the Sky News television channel. All IRN hourly bulletins carry Sky News branding and bulletins start with a time check intro: "From the Sky News Centre at [hour]". IRN agreed a further two-year contract with Sky News from March 2012, with a subsequent reported contract extension until March 2016 and March 2018.
No known challengers to the contract have since emerged and Sky News continues to supply IRN to this day. In March 2022, it was announced that a further "multi-year" contract extension was agreed between Sky News and IRN.
Competitors to IRN
IRN has faced many competitors during its history. ITN briefly ran ITN Radio News, which broadcast hourly news bulletins on the Astra satellite daily from 06:00 to 23:00. The service ran from 4 March 1990 until 4 July 1991 and clients included Jazz FM in London, East End Radio in Glasgow and a number of other small, incremental radio stations.
On 5 July 1991, Chiltern Radio launched Network News, which broadcast hourly news bulletins and audio cuts on Chiltern's Supergold audio channel on the Astra satellite. Bulletins were broadcast 24 hours a day from Chiltern studios in Dunstable utilising audio from Sky News and CNN Radio. Copy and scripts were distributed by stations via fax and a premium rate fax-back service. Network News enjoyed considerable success and won the contract to supply news to Virgin Radio upon its launch in April 1993. However, it suffered a major blow when it lost the Virgin Radio contract to Reuters Radio News in April 1995 and GWR chose to close Network News in April 1996 when it took over the Chiltern Radio network.
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References
External links
Independent Radio News
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British news radio programmes
Sky News
1973 establishments in the United Kingdom
Radio stations established in 1973
News agencies based in the United Kingdom |
423215 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle%20of%20Franklin | Battle of Franklin | The Battle of Franklin was fought on November 30, 1864, in Franklin, Tennessee, as part of the Franklin–Nashville Campaign of the American Civil War. It was one of the worst disasters of the war for the Confederate States Army. Confederate Lieutenant General (LTG) John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee conducted numerous frontal assaults against fortified positions occupied by the Union forces under Major General (MGEN) John Schofield and was unable to prevent Schofield from executing a planned, orderly withdrawal to Nashville.
The Confederate assault of six infantry divisions containing eighteen brigades with 100 regiments numbering almost 20,000 men, sometimes called the "Pickett's Charge of the West", resulted in devastating losses to the men and the leadership of the Army of Tennessee—fourteen Confederate generals (six killed, seven wounded, and one captured) and 55 regimental commanders were casualties. After its defeat against MGEN George H. Thomas in the subsequent Battle of Nashville, the Army of Tennessee retreated with barely half the men with which it had begun the short offensive, and was effectively destroyed as a fighting force for the remainder of the war.
The 1864 Battle of Franklin was the second military action in the vicinity; a battle in 1863 was a minor action associated with a reconnaissance in force by Confederate cavalry leader MGEN Earl Van Dorn on April 10.
Background
Military situation
Following his defeat in the Atlanta Campaign, Hood had hoped to lure MGEN William T. Sherman into battle by disrupting his railroad supply line from Chattanooga to Atlanta. After a brief period in which he pursued Hood, Sherman decided instead to cut his main army off from these lines and "live off the land" in his famed March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah. By doing so, he would avoid having to defend hundreds of miles of supply lines against constant raids, through which he predicted he would lose "a thousand men monthly and gain no result" against Hood's army.
Sherman's march left the aggressive Hood unoccupied, and his Army of Tennessee had several options in attacking Sherman or falling upon his rear lines. The task of defending Tennessee and the rearguard against Hood fell to MGEN George H. Thomas, commander of the Army of the Cumberland. The principal forces available in Middle Tennessee were IV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland, commanded by MGEN David S. Stanley, and XXIII Corps of the Army of the Ohio, commanded by MGEN John Schofield, with a total strength of about 30,000. Another 30,000 troops under Thomas's command were in or moving toward Nashville.
Rather than trying to chase Sherman in Georgia, Hood decided that he would attempt a major offensive northward, even though his invading force of 39,000 would be outnumbered by the 60,000 Union troops in Tennessee. He would move north into Tennessee and try to defeat portions of Thomas's army in detail before they could concentrate, seize the important manufacturing and supply center of Nashville, and continue north into Kentucky, possibly as far as the Ohio River.
Hood even expected to pick up 20,000 recruits from Tennessee and Kentucky in his path of victory and then join up with Robert E. Lee's army in Virginia, a plan that historian James M. McPherson describes as "scripted in never-never land." Hood had recovered from but was affected by a couple of serious physical battle wounds to a leg and arm, which caused him pain and limited his mobility. Hood spent the first three weeks of November quietly supplying the Army of Tennessee in northern Alabama in preparation for his offensive.
Road to Franklin, November 21–29
The Army of Tennessee marched north from Florence, Alabama, on November 21, and indeed managed to surprise the Union forces, the two halves of which were apart at Pulaski, Tennessee and at Nashville. With a series of fast marches that covered in three days, Hood tried to maneuver between the two armies to destroy each in detail. But Union general Schofield, commanding Stanley's IV Corps as well as his own XXIII Corps, reacted correctly with a rapid retreat from Pulaski to Columbia, which held an important bridge over the Duck River on the turnpike north. Despite suffering losses from MGEN Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry along the way, the Federals were able to reach Columbia and erect fortifications just hours before the Confederates arrived on November 24. From November 24 to 29, Schofield managed to block Hood at this crossing, and the "Battle of Columbia" was a series of mostly bloodless skirmishes and artillery bombardments while both sides re-gathered their armies.
On November 28, Thomas directed Schofield to begin preparations for a withdrawal north to Franklin. He was incorrectly expecting that MGEN A. J. Smith's XVI Corps arrival from Missouri was imminent and he wanted the combined force to defend against Hood on the line of the Harpeth River at Franklin instead of the Duck River at Columbia. Meanwhile, early on the morning of November 29, Hood sent Benjamin F. Cheatham's and Alexander P. Stewart's corps north on a flanking march. They crossed the Duck River at Davis's Ford east of Columbia, while two divisions of Stephen D. Lee's corps and most of the army's artillery remained on the southern bank to deceive Schofield into thinking a general assault was planned against Columbia.
Now that Hood had outflanked him by noon on November 29, Schofield's army was in critical danger. His command was split at that time between his supply wagons and artillery and part of the IV Corps, which he had sent to Spring Hill nearly ten miles north of Columbia, and the rest of the IV and XXIII corps marching from Columbia to join them. In the Battle of Spring Hill that afternoon and night, Hood had a golden opportunity to intercept and destroy the Union troops and their supply wagons, as his forces had already reached the turnpike separating the Union forces by nightfall. However, because of a series of command failures along with Hood's premature confidence that he had trapped Schofield, the Confederates failed to stop or even inflict much damage to the Union forces during the night.
Schofield was criticized by the Lost Cause myth for moving slowly in reaction to Hood and being only lucky to escape, but his subordinates defended his reaction as a careful balance between the safety of his army and his mission to delay Hood from striking Nashville before Thomas had amassed all his forces. Through decisive leadership and good luck, both the Union infantry and supply train managed to pass Spring Hill unscathed by dawn on November 29, and soon occupied the town of Franklin to the north. That morning, Hood was surprised and furious to discover Schofield's unexpected escape. After an angry conference with his subordinate commanders in which he blamed everyone but himself for the mistakes, Hood ordered his army to resume its pursuit north to Franklin.
Union defensive plans
Schofield's advance guard arrived in Franklin at about 4:30 a.m. on November 30, after a forced march north from Spring Hill. Brigadier General (BGEN) Jacob Cox, commander of the 3rd Division, temporarily assumed command of the XXIII Corps and immediately began preparing strong defensive positions around the deteriorated entrenchments originally constructed for a previous engagement in 1863.
Schofield decided to defend at Franklin with his back to the river because he had no pontoon bridges available that would enable his men to cross the river. The bridges had been left behind in his retreat from Columbia because they lacked wagons to transport them, and pontoons requested from Thomas in Nashville had not arrived. Schofield needed time to repair the permanent bridges spanning the river—a burned wagon bridge and an intact railroad bridge. He ordered his engineers to rebuild the wagon bridge and to lay planking over the undamaged railroad bridge to enable it to carry wagons and troops. His supply train parked in the side streets to keep the main pike open, while wagons continued to cross the river, first via a ford next to the burned-out pike bridge, and later in the afternoon by the two makeshift bridges. By the beginning of the assault, nearly all the supply wagons were across the Harpeth and on the road to Nashville.
By noon, the Union works were ready. The line, based on the prior year's fortifications, formed an approximate semicircle around the town from northwest to southeast. The other half of the circle was the Harpeth River. Counterclockwise from the northwest were the divisions of Kimball (IV Corps), Ruger (XXIII Corps), and Reilly (XXIII Corps). There was a gap in the line where the Columbia Pike (present day U.S. Route 31) entered the outskirts of the town, left open to allow passage of the wagons. About behind this gap, a 150-yard "retrenchment" line was constructed of dirt and rails, which was intended to be a barrier to traffic, not a full-fledged defensive earthwork. (The gap was also defended by the guns of Battery A, 1st Kentucky Artillery. The men of the 44th Missouri also extended the retrenchment line to the west along their front with hastily dug trenches.) The actual earthworks in the southern portion of the line were formidable. Attacking infantry would be confronted by a ditch about four feet wide and two to three feet deep, then a wall of earth and wooden fence rails four feet above normal ground level, and finally a trench three to four feet deep in which the defenders stood, aiming their weapons through narrow "head gaps" formed by logs. In the southeast portion of the line, Osage-orange shrubs formed an almost impenetrable abatis. Just behind the center of the line stood the Carter House, appropriated as Cox's headquarters. Just east of the pike was the Carter cotton gin building, around which a minor salient occurred in the Union earthworks. Schofield established his headquarters in the Alpheus Truett House, a half mile north of the Harpeth on the Nashville Pike, although he would spend most of his time during the battle in Fort Granger, built in 1863 as an artillery position northeast of the town.
Two Union brigades were positioned about a half mile forward of the main line. George D. Wagner's division had been the last to arrive from Spring Hill, and after briefly stopping at Winstead Hill before Hood arrived, he ordered his brigades under COLs Emerson Opdycke, John Q. Lane, and Joseph Conrad (who had replaced Luther Bradley, wounded at Spring Hill) to stop halfway to the Union line and dig in as best they could on the flat ground. Stanley had earlier ordered Wagner to hold Winstead Hill with two brigades and relieve Opdycke (who had been the tail end of the rear guard) until dark unless he was pressed, and it is possible that Wagner somehow translated these orders into the notion that he was supposed to hold a line south of the main position with all his division. Opdycke considered Wagner's order to be ridiculous and had already been directed by Stanley to retire within the works; he marched his brigade through the Union line and into a reserve position behind the gap through which the Columbia Pike passed. At 12:00, when the other U.S. forces had finished their fortifications, these two brigades had not even started digging in. Conrad's and Lane's brigades had few entrenching tools and used mainly bayonets, cups, and their hands.
Wood's division of IV Corps and all of Wilson's cavalry were posted north of the Harpeth to watch for any flanking attempt. Schofield planned to withdraw his infantry across the river by 18:00. if Hood had not arrived by then. As Hood approached, Schofield initially assumed the Confederates were demonstrating as they had at Columbia, planning to cross the Harpeth and turn the Union position. He did not suspect that Hood would be rash enough to attack the strong defensive line.
Hood's arrival and plan
Hood's army began to arrive on Winstead Hill, two miles (3 km) south of Franklin, around 13:00 Hood ordered a frontal assault in the dwindling afternoon light—sunset would be at 16:34 that day—against the Union force, a decision that caused dismay among his top generals. Forrest argued unsuccessfully that if he were given a division of infantry to accompany his cavalry, he could flank Schofield out of his position "within an hour." Frank Cheatham told Hood, "I do not like the looks of this fight; the enemy has an excellent position and is well fortified." But Hood countered that he would rather fight a Federal force that had had only a few hours to build defenses, instead of Nashville where "they have been strengthening themselves for three years." Patrick Cleburne observed the enemy fortifications as being formidable, but he told the commanding general that he would either take the enemy's works or fall in the attempt. He later remarked to Brigadier General (BGEN) Daniel C. Govan, "Well, Govan, if we are to die, let us die like men."
Some popular histories assert that Hood acted rashly in a fit of rage, resentful that the Federal army had slipped past his troops the night before at Spring Hill and that he wanted to discipline his army by ordering them to assault against strong odds. Recent scholarship discounts this as unlikely, as it was not only militarily foolish, but Hood was observed to be determined, not angry, by the time he arrived in Franklin. His move was very much in keeping with the behavior of Lee and his subordinates in the Army of Northern Virginia in that aggressive action frequently gains one the initiative in combat.
Regardless of Hood's personal motivations, his specific objective was to try to crush Schofield before he and his troops could escape to Nashville. He was concerned that if he attempted to turn Schofield by crossing the Harpeth and getting between him and Nashville, the maneuver would be time-consuming and the open terrain of the area would reveal his movements prematurely, causing Schofield to simply withdraw again. The Confederates began moving forward at 16:00, with Cheatham's corps on the left of the assault and Stewart's on the right. Bate's division, on the left, was delayed in reaching its starting point as it marched around Winstead Hill, a movement that delayed the start of the entire army. Hood divided Forrest's cavalry—Chalmer's division on the far left, beyond Bate, and Buford and Jackson with Forrest, covering Stewart and facing the fords on the Harpeth. Lee's corps, and almost all of the army's artillery, had not yet arrived from Columbia. Hood's attacking force, about 19–20,000 men, was arguably understrength for the mission he assigned—traversing two miles (3 km) of open ground with only two batteries of artillery support and then assaulting prepared fortifications.
Opposing forces
Union
MGEN John M. Schofield, commander of the Army of the Ohio, led a force of about 27,000 consisting of:
IV Corps, commanded by MGEN David S. Stanley, with divisions commanded by BGENs Nathan Kimball, George D. Wagner, and Thomas J. Wood.
XXIII Corps, normally commanded by Schofield, but temporarily commanded at Franklin by BGEN Jacob D. Cox, with divisions commanded by BGENs Thomas H. Ruger and James W. Reilly.
Cavalry Corps, commanded by MGEN James H. Wilson, with divisions commanded by BGEN Edward M. McCook, Edward Hatch, Richard W. Johnson, and Joseph F. Knipe.
Confederate
LTG John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee, at 39,000 men, constituted the second-largest remaining army of the Confederacy, ranking in strength only after Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. The army consisted of the corps of:
MGEN Benjamin F. Cheatham, with divisions commanded by Maj. Gens. Patrick R. Cleburne, John C. Brown, and William B. Bate.
LTG Stephen D. Lee, with divisions commanded by Maj. Gens. Edward "Allegheny" Johnson, Carter L. Stevenson, and Henry D. Clayton. (Only Johnson's division played an active role at Franklin.)
LTG Alexander P. Stewart, with divisions commanded by MGEN William W. Loring, Samuel G. French, and Edward C. Walthall.
Cavalry forces under MGEN Nathan Bedford Forrest, with divisions commanded by BGEN James R. Chalmers, Abraham Buford, and William H. Jackson.
At Franklin, about 27,000 Confederates were engaged, primarily from the corps of Cheatham, Stewart, and Forrest, and Johnson's division of Lee's corps.
Battle
Initial contact
Hood's attack initially enveloped the 3,000 men in two brigades under Lane and Conrad, which attempted to stand their ground behind inadequate fieldworks and without anchored flanks, but quickly collapsed under the pressure. As Wagner exhorted his men to stand fast, they let loose a single strong volley of rifle fire, and a two-gun section of Battery G, 1st Ohio Light Artillery, fired canister, but then many of the veteran soldiers of the two brigades stampeded back on the Columbia Pike to the main breastworks, while some untried replacements were reluctant to move under fire and were captured. Nearly 700 of Wagner's men were taken prisoner. The fleeing troops were closely pursued by the Confederates, and a cry was repeated along the line, "Go into the works with them." The pursued and pursuers were so intermingled that defenders in the breastworks had to hold their fire to avoid hitting their comrades.
Breakthrough and repulse in the Federal center
The Union's momentary inability to defend the opening in the works caused a weak spot in its line at the Columbia Pike from the Carter House to the cotton gin. The Confederate divisions of Cleburne, Brown, and French converged on this front and a number of their troops broke through the now not-so-solid Federal defenses on either side. The 100th Ohio Infantry, of Reilly's brigade, was driven back from its position to the east of the pike and Colonel (COL) Silas A. Strickland's brigade (Ruger's division) was forced to withdraw back to the Carter House. The left wing of the 72nd Illinois Infantry was swept away and rallied on the 183rd Ohio Infantry, in reserve at the retrenchment, which prompted the remainder of the 72nd to withdraw back to that line. In a matter of minutes, the Confederates had penetrated 50 yards deep into the center of the Federal line.
As the Confederates poured men into the breach, reserve regiments on both sides of the pike, the 44th Missouri and 100th Ohio stood their ground, but were in danger of being overwhelmed. At this time, Emerson Opdycke's brigade was in reserve, positioned in columns of regiments facing north in a meadow about 200 yards north of the Carter House. Opdycke quickly repositioned his veterans into line of battle, straddling the road, and they were confronted by masses of fleeing Union soldiers, pursued by Confederates. Opdycke ordered his brigade forward to the works. At the same time, his corps commander, David Stanley, arrived on the scene. He later wrote, "I saw Opdycke near the center of his line urging his men forward. I gave the Colonel no orders as I saw him engaged in doing the very thing to save us, to get possession of our line again." As he rode forward, Stanley had his horse shot out from under him and a bullet passed through the back of his neck, putting him temporarily out of action.
At the same time as Opdycke's counterattack west of the pike, the reserve elements of Reilly's division (the 12th Kentucky Infantry, 16th Kentucky Infantry, and 175th Ohio Infantry Regiment) had stood their ground and served as a rally line for survivors of Strickland's and Wagner's divisions. Together they sealed the breach. Hand-to-hand fighting around the Carter House and the pike was furious and desperate, employing such weapons as bayonets, rifle butts, entrenching tools, axes, and picks. When they ran out of cannonballs, they began to use pine cones from the surrounding trees.
For years afterward, the ferocity of the combat at extremely close quarters made the battle stand out in many of the veterans' memories. The historian, Jonathan Steplyk noted that the involvement of the field officers alongside their troops in the "frenzied brawl" showed the desperation with which they fought as regimental officers were normally expected to lead and inspire their men instead of getting directly involved. Many a field-grade officer in the U.S. forces actually used their swords as weapons that day. After having his horse shot out from under him and taking a bullet, Arthur MacArthur ran through a Confederate major who had just shot him in the chest. Opdycke riding his horse emptied his pistol at the Rebels and then dismounted to use it as club until it broke; grabbing a musket, he began clubbing the enemy with that. Steplyk writes that a reason the combat may have stood out so vividly for veterans was because the closeness was so exceptional; many of the Army of the Ohio and the Army of Tennessee had fought since Shiloh, but this combat was the first time they saw the bayonet and musket butt used with such abandon.
Firing continued around the Carter house and gardens for hours. Many in Brown's division were driven back to the Federal earthworks, where many were pinned down for the remainder of the evening, unable to either advance or flee. Each side fired through embrasures or over the top of the parapets at close range in an attempt to dislodge the other. Brown's division suffered significant losses, including Brown, who was wounded, and all four of his brigade commanders were casualties. Brown's brigade under BGEN George W. Gordon had angled to the right during the advance, joining Cleburne's division to the east of the pike. Their attack near the cotton gin was driven back from the breastworks and was then subjected to devastating cross fire from Reilly's brigade to their front and the brigade of COL John S. Casement, on Reilly's right. Cleburne was killed in the attack and 14 of his brigade and regimental commanders were casualties.
That some Union troops were armed with Spencer and Henry repeating rifles added to the otherwise considerable advantages of the defenders. Near the Carter House, 350 men of the 12th Kentucky and 65th Illinois fired 16-shot, lever-action Henry rifles, the predecessors to the Winchester repeating rifle. These rifles, capable of at least 15 to 30 shots per minute, which gave these men several times more firepower than typical infantrymen with the more common muzzle-loading rifle-muskets.
Repulse on the Federal left
While fighting raged at the center of the Union line, the Confederates of Stewart's corps also advanced against the Union left. Because the Harpeth River flowed in that area from southeast to northwest, the brigade found itself moving through a space getting progressively narrower, squeezing brigades together into a compressed front, delaying their movements and reducing their unit cohesion. Walthall's division was pressured so much from the right that it temporarily fell in front of Cleburne's advance. They were all subjected to fierce artillery fire not only from the main Union line, but also from the batteries across the river at Fort Granger. They also had significant difficulty pushing through the strong osage-orange abatis.
Loring's division launched two attacks against the Union brigade of COL Israel N. Stiles and both were repulsed with heavy losses. Artillery firing canister rounds directly down the railroad cut prevented any attempt to flank the Union position. BGEN John Adams attempted to rally his brigade by galloping his horse directly onto the earthworks. As he attempted to seize the flag of the 65th Illinois, he and his horse were both shot and killed. The brigade of BGEN Winfield S. Featherston began falling back under heavy fire when its division commander, MGEN William W. Loring, confronted them, shouting, "Great God. Do I command cowards?" He attempted to inspire his men by sitting on his horse in full view of the Federal lines for over a minute and amazingly emerged unharmed, but the brigade made no further progress.
Walthall's division, intermixed partially with Loring's division because of the confusion that resulted from the narrow space, struck Casement's and Reilly's brigades in multiple waves of brigade assaults—probably as many as six distinct attacks. All of these assaults were turned back with heavy losses. The brigade of BGEN William A. Quarles was able to push through the abatis and reached the Federal earthworks, where it was pinned down by murderous crossfire. Quarles was wounded in the left arm and at the end of the battle the highest-ranking officer standing in his brigade was a captain.
Failures on the Confederate left and center
MGEN William B. Bate's division had a long distance to march to reach its assigned objective on the Union right and when he gave the final order to attack it was almost dark. First contact with the enemy came around the Everbright Mansion, the home of Rebecca Bostick, and the Confederates pushed aside Union sharpshooters and swept past the house. However, Bate's left flank was not being protected as he expected by Chalmers's cavalry division, and they received enfilade fire. To protect the flank, Bate ordered the Florida Brigade, temporarily commanded by COL Robert Bullock, to move from its reserve position to his left flank. This not only delayed the advance, but provided only a single line to attack the Union fortifications, leaving no reserve. Chalmers's troopers had actually engaged the Federal right by this time (the brigades of COL Isaac M. Kirby and BGEN Walter C. Whitaker of Kimball's division), fighting dismounted, but Bate was unaware of it because the two forces were separated by rolling ground and orchards. Neither Bate nor Chalmers made any progress and they withdrew.
Hood, who remained at his headquarters on Winstead Hill, was still convinced that he could pierce the Federal line. At about 19:00, he deployed the only division of Stephen D. Lee's corps that had arrived, commanded by MGEN Edward "Allegheny" Johnson, to assist Cheatham's effort. They moved north on the west side of the Columbia Turnpike and passed around Privet Knob, Cheatham's headquarters, but were unfamiliar with the terrain in the dark and Cheatham told Lee he had no staff officer left who could guide them. Both Bate and Cheatham warned Lee not to fire indiscriminately against the Federal works because Confederates were pinned down there on the outside. Johnson's men lost their unit alignments in the dark and had significant difficulties attacking the works just to the west of the Carter House. They were repulsed after a single assault with heavy losses.
Cavalry actions
In addition to Chalmers's actions in the west, across the river to the east Confederate cavalry commander Forrest attempted to turn the Union left. His two divisions on Stewart's right (BGENs Abraham Buford II and William H. Jackson) engaged some Federal cavalry pickets and pushed them back. They crossed the Harpeth at Hughes Ford, about upstream from Franklin. When Union cavalry commander BGEN James H. Wilson learned at 15:00 that Forrest was crossing the river, he ordered his division under BGEN Edward Hatch to move south from his position on the Brentwood Turnpike and attack Forrest from the front. He ordered BGEN John T. Croxton's brigade to move against Forrest's flank and held COL Thomas J. Harrison's brigade in reserve. The dismounted cavalrymen of Hatch's division charged the Confederate cavalrymen, also dismounted, and drove them back across the river. Some of Croxton's men were armed with seven-shot Spencer carbines, which had a devastating effect on the Confederate line. Wilson was proud of his men's accomplishment because this was the first time that Forrest had been defeated by a smaller force in a standup fight during the war.
Aftermath
Following the failure of Johnson's assault, Hood decided to end offensive actions for the evening and began to plan for a resumed series of attacks in the morning. Schofield ordered his infantry to cross the river, starting at 23:00, despite objections from Cox that withdrawal was no longer necessary and that Hood was weakened and should be counter-attacked. Schofield had received orders from Thomas to evacuate earlier that day—before Hood's attack began—and he was happy to take advantage of them despite the changed circumstances. Although there was a period in which the Union army was vulnerable, outside its works and straddling the river, Hood did not attempt to take advantage of it during the night. The Union army began entering the breastworks at Nashville at noon on December 1, with Hood's damaged army in pursuit.
The damaged Confederate force was left in control of Franklin, but its enemy had escaped again. Although he had briefly come close to breaking through in the vicinity of the Columbia Turnpike, Hood was unable to destroy Schofield or prevent his withdrawal to link up with Thomas in Nashville. And his unsuccessful result came with a frightful cost. The Confederates suffered 6,252 casualties, including 1,750 killed and 3,800 wounded. An estimated 2,000 others suffered less serious wounds and returned to duty before the Battle of Nashville.
More importantly, the military leadership in the West was decimated, including the loss of perhaps the best division commander of either side, Patrick Cleburne, who was killed in action. Fourteen Confederate generals (six killed, seven wounded, and one captured) and 55 regimental commanders were casualties. Five generals killed in action at Franklin were Cleburne, John Adams, Hiram B. Granbury, States Rights Gist, and Otho F. Strahl. A sixth general, John C. Carter, was mortally wounded and died later on December 10. The wounded generals were John C. Brown, Francis M. Cockrell, Zachariah C. Deas, Arthur M. Manigault, Thomas M. Scott, and Jacob H. Sharp. One general, BGEN George W. Gordon, was captured. Also among the dead was Tod Carter, the middle child of the Carter family. Having enlisted in the Confederate army three years earlier, Carter had returned to his hometown for the first time since then, only to be wounded in battle just a few hundred yards away from his own house. He was found by his family after the battle, and died early in the next day.
Historian Andrew Bledsoe writes that the "wastage" of the officer corps "irreparably harmed [Hood's] army's morale, disrupted its command structure, and deprived it of talented and experienced commanders."" He further cites the timing of the attack, just before twilight, as a key factor combined with the fact that most officers were mounted to preserve their command and control in the fading light, a "result of logical, and terrible, deliberation".
Union losses were reported as only 189 killed, 1,033 wounded, and 1,104 missing. It is possible that the number of casualties was under-reported by Schofield because of the confusion during his army's hasty nighttime evacuation of Franklin. The Union wounded were left behind in Franklin. Many of the prisoners, including all captured wounded and medical personnel, were recovered on December 18 when Union forces re-entered Franklin in pursuit of Hood.
The Army of Tennessee was badly damaged at Franklin. Nevertheless, rather than retreat and risk the army dissolving through desertions, Hood advanced his 26,500 man force against the Union army now combined under Thomas, firmly entrenched at Nashville which numbered more than 60,000. Hood and his department commander Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard requested reinforcements, but none were available. Strongly outnumbered and exposed to the elements, Hood was attacked by Thomas on December 15–16 at the Battle of Nashville, defeated decisively and pursued aggressively, retreating to Mississippi with just under 20,000 men. The Army of Tennessee never fought again as an effective force and Hood's career was ruined.
Perhaps surprisingly, some Confederate soldiers claimed that Franklin was a victory. James Lanning of the 25th Alabama Infantry wrote in his diary, “victory is ours but very dearly bought.” Confederate artilleryman William Ritter believed, “the charge was a brilliant one and was successful, as part of the enemy’s line was captured.” Joseph Boyce of the 1st Missouri Infantry acknowledged that many men considered Franklin a victory for the Confederate army since it held the battlefield at the end of the fighting. However, Boyce, who was wounded at Franklin, also noted “two such victories will wipe out any army.”
Hood's continued pursuit of Schofield after suffering defeat at Franklin and his refusal to withdraw before the battle of Nashville caused Schofield to remark "I doubt if any soldiers in the world ever needed more cumulative evidence to convince them that they were beaten."
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Battle Cry of Freedom, James M. McPherson wrote, "Having proved even to Hood's satisfaction that they could assault breastworks, the Army of Tennessee had shattered itself beyond the possibility of ever doing so again. David J. Eicher wrote that Hood "had in effect mortally wounded his army at Franklin."
Battlefield today
The Carter House, which stands today and is open to visitors, was located at the center of the Union position. The site covers about . The house and outbuildings still show hundreds of bullet holes. The Carnton Plantation, home to the McGavock family during the battle, also still stands and is likewise open to the public. The Carnton Plantation home was one of 44 Franklin homes serving as a hospital, often with 30 wounded in each small room of the house. Confederate soldiers of Stewart's Corps swept past Carnton toward the left wing of the Union army and the house and outbuildings were converted into the largest field hospital present after the battle. Adjacent to Carnton is the McGavock Confederate Cemetery, where 1,481 Southern soldiers killed in the battle are buried. Adjacent to the surrounding Carnton is another of battlefield, formerly the Franklin Country Club golf course, which is currently being converted to a city park.
Much of the rest of the Franklin battlefield has been lost to commercial development. The spot where Gen. Cleburne fell, for instance, was covered until late 2005 by a Pizza Hut restaurant. City officials and historic-preservation groups have recently placed a new emphasis on saving what remains of the land over which the battle raged.
In 2006, of land bordering the southwestern end of the Carter House property was acquired with help of the American Battlefield Trust and local organizations. This land was part of that made up the Carter Family Garden, which during the battle saw tremendous fighting and was part of a brief Confederate breakthrough. After the purchase, a house, out-buildings, and a swimming pool were removed. During excavation of the original Federal entrenchments some human bones were found.
Starting in 2005, the area around the intersection of Columbia Ave. and Cleburne St. has seen a serious renewed effort to reclaim that area to be the heart of a future battlefield park. The location of the former Pizza Hut is now the home to Cleburne Park. The property where the Carter Cotton Gin was located during the battle was purchased in 2005. In 2008 the property behind this location and where the Federal line crossed Columbia Ave. was purchased and in May 2010 the property east of the Gin location and where part of the Gin may have stood was also purchased. All these locations have houses on them that will be either sold and moved or torn down. Preservation organizations plan to reconstruct both the Carter Cotton Gin and some of the Federal entrenchments.
On November 24, 2010, the State of Tennessee awarded a $960,000 enhancement grant from the Tennessee Department of Transportation to help purchase the property where the Domino's Pizza and mini-mart is located. A local preservation organization is also hoping to purchase 16 acres of land in two parcels: five acres located southwest of what is now a small park called the Collin's Farm located at the southeast corner of the Lewisburg Pike and the Nashville and Decatur Railroad that was preserved a few years ago; and 11 acres located near the corner of Lewisburg Pike and Carnton Lane. The American Battlefield Trust and its federal, state and local partners have acquired and preserved more than of the battlefield in more than a dozen different transactions since 1996
Hugh A. Garland Jr., the son of slavery advocate and Andrew Jackson supporter Hugh A. Garland was a Confederate casualty in the battle.
In popular culture
In the book Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, the character Rhett Butler mentions that he fought at Franklin.
See also
Armies in the American Civil War
Franklin-Nashville campaign
List of costliest American Civil War land battles
Sherman's March
Troop engagements of the American Civil War, 1864
References
Footnotes
Citations
Bibliography
Memoirs and primary sources
. First published 1880 for the Hood Orphan Memorial Fund by G.T. Beauregard.
Further reading
External links
Battle of Franklin: Battle Maps, histories, photos, and preservation news (Civil War Trust)
Animated map of the Battle of Franklin (Civil War Trust)
A blog-database for descendants of the Battle of Franklin
Google Map of the Battle of Franklin
Battle of Franklin.net
Animated history of the Franklin-Nashville Campaign
Save the Franklin Battlefield, Inc.
Carter House Museum
Carnton Plantation
McGavock Confederate Cemetery
West Point Atlas map, Battles of Spring Hill and Franklin
Historic map of Franklin, Tennessee Civil War Preservation Association
John Bell Hood Society's defense of Hood's 1864 Tennessee campaign
On this date in Civil War history – Battle of Franklin – November 30, 1864
1864 in Tennessee
Franklin II
Franklin II
Franklin 1864
Nathan Bedford Forrest
John Bell Hood
Franklin, Tennessee
Franklin II
Franklin II
Franklin II
Williamson County, Tennessee
November 1864 events |
423269 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HO%20scale | HO scale | HO or H0 is a rail transport modelling scale using a 1:87 scale (3.5 mm to 1 foot). It is the most popular scale of model railway in the world. The rails are spaced apart for modelling standard gauge tracks and trains in HO.
The name H0 comes from 1:87 scale being half that of 0 scale, which was originally the smallest of the series of older and larger 0, 1, 2 and 3 gauges introduced by Märklin around 1900. Rather than referring to the scale as "half-zero" or "H-zero", English-speakers have consistently pronounced it and have generally written it with the letters HO. In other languages it also remains written with the letter H and number 0 (zero); in German it is thus pronounced as .
History
After the First World War there were several attempts to introduce a model railway about half the size of 0 scale that would be more suitable for smaller home layouts and cheaper to manufacture. H0 was created to meet these aims. For this new scale, a track width of was designed to represent prototypical standard-gauge track of width, and a model scale of 1:87 was chosen. By as early as 1922 the firm Bing in Nuremberg, Germany, had been marketing a "tabletop railway" for several years. This came on a raised, quasi-ballasted track with a gauge of 16.5 mm, which was described at that time either as 00 or H0. The trains initially had a clockwork drive, but from 1924 were driven electrically. Accessory manufacturers, such as Kibri, marketed buildings in the corresponding scale.
At the 1935 Leipzig Spring Fair, an electric tabletop railway, Trix Express, was displayed to a gauge described as "half nought gauge", which was then abbreviated as gauge 00 ("nought-nought"). Märklin, another German firm, followed suit with its 00 gauge railway for the 1935 Leipzig Autumn Fair. The Märklin 00 gauge track that appeared more than ten years after Bing's tabletop railway had a very similar appearance to the previous Bing track. On the Märklin version, however, the rails were fixed to the tin 'ballast' as in the prototype, whilst the Bing tracks were simply stamped into the ballast, so that track and ballast were made of a single sheet of metal.
HO scale trains elsewhere were developed in response to the economic pressures of the Great Depression. The trains first appeared in the United Kingdom, originally as an alternative to 00 gauge, but could not make commercial headway against the established 00 gauge. However, it became very popular in the United States, where it took off in the late 1950s after interest in model railroads as toys began to decline and more emphasis began to be placed on realism in response to hobbyist demand. While HO scale is by nature more delicate than 0 scale, its smaller size allows modelers to fit more details and more scale track distance into a comparable area.
In the 1950s HO began to challenge the market dominance of 0 gauge and, in the 1960s, as it began to overtake 0 scale in popularity, even the stalwarts of other sizes, including Marx and Lionel Corporation began manufacturing HO trains.
Today, HO locomotives, rolling stock (cars or carriages), buildings, and scenery are available from a large number of manufacturers in a variety of price brackets.
Standards
Scale
HO is the most popular model railroad scale in both continental Europe and North America, whereas OO scale (4 mm:foot or 1:76.2 with 16.5 mm track) is still dominant in the United Kingdom. There are some modellers in the United Kingdom who model in HO scale and the British 1:87 Scale Society was formed in 1994.
In Continental Europe, H0 scale is defined in the (NEM) standard "NEM 010" published by MOROP as exactly 1:87. In North America, the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) standard "S-1.2 General Standard Scales" defines HO scale as representing a ratio of , usually rounded to 1:87.1. The precise definition of HO scale thus varies slightly by country and manufacturer.
In other hobbies, the term HO is often used more loosely than in railroad modeling. In slot car racing, HO does not denote a precise scale of car, but a general size of track on which the cars can range from 1:87 to approximately 1:64 scale. Small plastic model soldiers are often popularly referred to as HO size if they are close to high, though the actual scale is usually 1:76 or 1:72.
Even in model railroading, the term HO can be stretched. Some British producers have marketed railway accessories such as detail items and figures, as "HO/OO" in an attempt to make them attractive to modelers in both scales. Sometimes the actual scale is OO, and sometimes the difference is split (about 1:82). These items may be marketed as HO, especially in the US. In addition, some manufacturers or importers tend to label any small-scale model, regardless of exact scale, as HO scale in order to increase sales to railroad modelers. The sizes of "HO" automobiles, for example, can vary greatly between different manufacturers.
Power and control
Model locomotives are fitted with small motors that are wired to pick up power from the rails. As with other scales, HO trains can be controlled in either analog or digital fashions. With analog control, two-rail track is powered by direct current (varying the voltage applied to the rails to control speed, and polarity to control direction). With digital control, such as Digital Command Control (DCC) or proprietary systems such as the one developed by Märklin, digital commands are encoded at the controller and received by any decoders receiving power from the track. Digital control allows independent control of each locomotive's speed and direction as well as functions not easily achieved with analog control such as reactive sound and lighting effects, integration of auxiliary decoders and automation.
The basic power and control system consists of a power pack of a transformer and rectifier (DC), a rheostat. On large model layouts, the power system may consist of several signal boosters, control interfaces, switch panels and more. Trackage may be divided into electrically isolated sections called blocks and toggle or rotary switches (sometimes relays) are used to select which tracks are energized. Blocking trackage also allows the detection of locomotives within the block through the measurement of current draw.
Track
The "gauge" of a rail system is the distance between the inside edges of the railheads. It is distinct from the concept of "scale", though the terms are often used interchangeably in rail modelling. "Scale" describes the size of a modeled object relative to its prototype. Prototype rail systems use a variety of track gauges, so several different gauges can be modeled at the same scale.
The gauges used in HO scale are a selection of standard and narrow gauges. The standards for these gauges are defined by the NMRA (in North America) and the NEM (in Continental Europe). While the standards are in practice interchangeable, there are minor differences.
Construction
The earliest "pre-gauged" track available in the 1940s had steel rails clipped to a fiber tie base. This was called flexible track as it could be "flexed" around any curve in a continuous fashion. The sections were sold in lengths of , and the rail ends were connected with a sheet metal track connector that was soldered to the base of the rail.
As brass became more readily available, the steel rail was phased out, along with its corrosion problems. Brass flex-track continued to be available long after sectional track was introduced, as the three-foot lengths of rail reduced the number of joints. The biggest disadvantage of flex-track was that it had to be fastened to a roadbed.
In the late 1940s, Tru-Scale made milled wood roadbed sections, simulating ballast, tie plates and milled ties with a gauged, grooved slot with simulated tie plates. Bulk HO code 100 rail was spiked in place with HO spikes. This was available in straight lengths and curves, from radius.
It was up to the user to stain the wood for the tie colors prior to laying the brass track, and then adding scale ballast between the ties.
Tru-Scale made preformed wood roadbed sections, simulating ballast, that the flextrack would be fastened with tiny steel spikes. These spikes were shaped much like real railroad spikes, and were fitted through holes pre-drilled in the fiber flextrack ties base. An improvement was made when "sectional track" became available in a variety of standardized lengths, such as the ubiquitous straight and curved tracks of , , and radii. These are representative of curves as tight as , which in the real world would only be found on some industrial spurs and light rail systems.
Sectional track was an improvement in setting up track on a living room floor because the rail was attached to a rigid plastic tie base, and could withstand rough handling from children and pets without suffering much damage. With flex track, which can be bent to any desired shape (within reason), it became possible to create railroads with broader curves, and with them more accurate models. Individual rails are available for those that wish to spike their own rails to ties. Individual ties can be glued to a sound base, or pre-formed tie and ballast sections milled from wood can be used for a more durable, if somewhat artificially uniform, look is preferred.
There are a variety of preassembled track sections made by Märklin using their three-rail system (where the third rail are actually studs protruding from the center of the rail tie). This trackwork is a little bulkier looking than true to scale, but it is considered quite trouble-free, and is preferred by many that are interested in reducing much of the operational problems that come with HO scale railroading. As with other preformed track, it is also available in several radius configurations. Generally speaking, very-sharp-radius curves are only suitable for single-unit operation, such as trolley cars, or for short-coupled cars and locos such as found around industrial works. Longer wheelbase trucks (bogies) and longer car and loco overhangs require the use of broader radius curves. Today many six-axle diesels and full-length passenger cars will not run on curves less than in radius.
HO scale track was originally manufactured with steel rails on fiber ties, then brass rail on fiber ties, then brass rail on plastic tie. Over time, track made of nickel silver (an alloy of nickel and brass) became more common due to its superior resistance to corrosion. Today, almost all HO scale track is of nickel silver, although Bachmann, Life-Like and Model Power continue to manufacture steel track.
In America, Atlas gained an early lead in track manufacturing, and their sectional, flex, and turnout track dominates the US market. In the UK, Peco's line of flex track and "Electrofrog" (powered frog) and "Insulfrog" (insulated frog) turnouts are more common. Atlas, Bachmann, and Life-Like all manufacture inexpensive, snap-together track with integral roadbed. Kato also manufactures a full line of "HO Unitrack"; however, it has not yet caught on as their N scale Unitrack has.
Rail height is measured in thousandths of an inch; "code 83" track has a rail which is high. As HO's commonly available rail sizes, especially the popular "code 100", are somewhat large (representative of extremely heavily trafficked lines), many modelers opt for hand-laid finescale track with individually laid wooden sleepers and crossties and rails secured by very small railroad spikes.
In Australia, many club-owned layouts employ code 100 track so that club members can also run OO-scale models and older rolling stock with coarse (deep) wheel flanges.
Couplers
A hook-and-loop coupler originally developed by Märklin became an NEM standard and is still widely used. More recently, manufacturers, including Fleischmann and Märklin, developed close couplers that on straight track have the buffers almost touching, more like the prototype. On curves a sliding mechanism allows the couplers to move away from the buffer frame providing the additional clearance necessary.
Most couplers provide pre-uncoupling, whereby a train may reverse over a raised uncoupler and some time later change direction leaving the train (or selected cars) behind.
Another NEM standard is the coupler pocket, which the individual coupler slots into. The majority of models provide this pocket, meaning that it is very simple to exchange one coupler type for another, or to replace damaged couplers.
In North America, all train sets/kits used to come with the "X2F" or "Horn Hook" coupler until Kadee came out with the No. 5 coupler. After Kadee's patent ran out, other manufacturers made duplicates of the KD No. 5 until KD brought out the scale-accurate No. 58 coupler, and everyone else followed suit.
In Australia, older models produced by Lima and Powerline traditionally used NEM hook-and-loop couplers, however almost all models since the mid-1990s use Kadee or compatible couplers such as Bachmann E-Z Mate. Older Australian-market train sets manufactured by Tyco, Life-Like and Bachmann used the same horn hook couplers as their American counterparts.
Models
Because of the scale's popularity, a huge array of models, kits and supplies are manufactured. The annual HO scale catalog by Wm. K. Walthers, North America's largest model railroad supplier, lists more than 1,000 pages of products in that scale alone. Models are generally available in three varieties:
Ready-to-run models are fully ready for use right out of the box. Generally, this means couplers, trucks (bogies), and other integral parts are installed at the factory, although some super detailing parts may still need to be attached.
Shake-the-box kits are simple, easy-to-assemble kits; a freight car might include a one-piece body, a chassis, trucks, couplers, and a weight, while a structure kit might include walls, windows, doors, and glazing. The name derives from the joke that no skill was required – shake the box, and the kit falls together. A common synonym is screwdriver kit as many can be assembled with a screwdriver and tweezers.
Craftsman kits require a much higher level of skill to assemble and can include several hundred parts.
In addition to these kits, numerous manufacturers sell individual supplies for super detailing, scratch building, and kitbashing.
Quality varies extremely. Toylike, ready-to-run trains using plastic molds which are well over 50 years old are still sold; at the other are highly detailed limited-edition locomotive models made of brass by companies based in Japan and South Korea. A popular locomotive such as the F7/F9 may be available in thirty different versions with prices ranging from twenty to several thousand dollars or euros.
Comparison to other scales
HO scale's popularity lies somewhat in its middle-of-the-road status. It is large enough to accommodate a great deal of detail in finer models, more so than the smaller N and Z scales, and can also be easily handled by children. Models are usually less expensive than the smaller scales because of more exacting manufacturing process in N and Z, and also less expensive than S, O and G scales because of the smaller amount of material; the larger market and the resultant economy of scale also drives HO prices down. The size lends itself to elaborate track plans in a reasonable amount of room space, not as much as N but considerably more than S or 0. In short, HO scale provides the balance between the detail of larger scales and the lower space requirements of smaller scales.
Manufacturers
Currently active significant manufacturers and marketers of HO railroad equipment , include, but are not limited to:
ABR Model Works
Accurail
Acme Model Engineering Co.
Albrae Models
Arlo
Athabasca Scale Models
Athearn
Atlas
Auhagen
Auscision
Austrains
AWM
Bachmann Industries
BGR Group
Blackstone Models (HOn3)
Blair Line
BLMA Models
Bowser Manufacturing
Brawa
Brekina
Broadway Limited Imports
Busch
Campbell Scale Models
Century Foundry
Electrotren (part of Hornby)
ESU (Electronic Solutions Ulm)
Eureka
Exactrail
Faller
Fleischmann (part of Modelleisenbahn GmbH)
Frateschi
Fulgurex
HAG
Heki
Heljan
Herpa
Hodgdon Scale Models
Hornby Railways
Hunterline Craftsman Kits
Ibertren
InterMountain Railway
IHC
Island Modelworks
Jouef (part of Hornby)
Kadee
Kanamodel Products
Kato Precision Railroad Models
Katsumi Trains
Kibri
Kleinbahn
Lemaco
Life-Like
Liliput (part of Bachmann)
Lima — bankrupt in 2004, now part of Hornby
Lionel, LLC
Mantua
Märklin
Mehano
Micro Metakit
Model Power
MTH Electric Trains
MRmatiX
Noch
NMJ
Norev
Northwest Short Line (NWSL)
Peco
PIKO
Powerline Models
Precision Craft Models
Preiser
Rapido Trains
Rietze
Rivarossi (part of Hornby)
Roco (part of Modelleisenbahn GmbH)
ScaleTrains
SoundTraxx
Spectrum (trains) (part of Bachmann)
Stewart Hobbies
Spark
Summit USA
Tenshodo
Tillig
Trix (part of the Märklin group)
TMI Digital
Tyco
VK
Viessmann
Vollmer (company)
Wiking
Wm. K. Walthers
Woodland Scenics
Significant historical manufacturers and marketers of HO equipment that are no longer active in HO, include
Airfix
American Railroad Models (American Beauty)
Aristo-Craft
Associated Hobby Manufacturers (AHM)
Aurora Plastics Corporation
Balboa
L.M. Cox
Globe
Gützold (bankrupt in 2004)
Herkimer
Kembel
Ken Kidder
Lindberg Models
Lindsay Products
Marx
Olympic Express
Pacific Fast Mail (PFM)
Penn Line Manufacturing
Powerline Models
Revell
Sachsenmodelle (bankrupt in 2001, acquired by Tillig group)
Selley
Train Miniature
Trains Unlimited
Trainorama
Tru-Scale
True Line Trains
Trumpeter Models
Tyco Toys
Ulrich
Varney Scale Models
See also
FREMO
List of rail transport modelling scale standards
Miniatur Wunderland
Proto:87
Rail transport modelling scales
References
External links
Layout Tours A-L and Layout Tours M-Z
Tony Cook's HO-Scale Trains Resource Includes separate Web sites for many classic and contemporary HO-scale model train product lines of the past; online catalog resources; plus links to current manufacturers.
Model railroad scales
Scale model scales |
423300 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-8 | STS-8 | STS-8 was the eighth NASA Space Shuttle mission and the third flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It launched on August 30, 1983, and landed on September 5, 1983, conducting the first night launch and night landing of the Space Shuttle program. It also carried the first African-American astronaut, Guion Bluford. The mission successfully achieved all of its planned research objectives, but was marred by the subsequent discovery that a solid-fuel rocket booster had almost malfunctioned catastrophically during the launch.
The mission's primary payload was INSAT-1B, an Indian communications and weather observation satellite, which was released by the orbiter and boosted into a geostationary orbit. The secondary payload, replacing a delayed NASA communications satellite, was a four-metric-ton dummy payload, intended to test the use of the shuttle's Canadarm (remote manipulator system). Scientific experiments carried on board Challenger included the environmental testing of new hardware and materials designed for future spacecraft, the study of biological materials in electric fields under microgravity, and research into space adaptation syndrome (also known as "space sickness"). The flight furthermore served as shakedown testing for the previously launched TDRS-1 satellite, which would be required to support the subsequent STS-9 mission.
Crew
This mission had a crew of five, with three mission specialists. It was the second mission (after STS-7) to fly with a crew of five, the largest carried by a single spacecraft up to that date. The crew was historically notable for the participation of Guion Bluford, who became the first African-American to fly in space.
The commander, Truly, was the only veteran astronaut of the crew, having flown as the pilot on STS-2 in 1981 and for two of the Approach and Landing Tests (ALT) aboard Enterprise in 1977. Prior to this, he had worked as a capsule communicator (CAPCOM) for all three Skylab missions and the ASTP mission. Brandenstein, Gardner and Bluford had all been recruited in 1978, and been training for a mission since 1979. The mission had originally been planned for a crew of four, with Thornton added to the crew as a third mission specialist in December 1982, eight months after the crew was originally named. As with Truly, he was an Apollo-era recruit, having joined NASA in 1967. His participation on the mission included a series of tests aimed at gathering information on the physiological changes linked with Space Adaptation Syndrome, more commonly known as "space sickness"; this had become a focus of attention in NASA, as astronauts succumbed to it during Shuttle missions.
The orbiter carried two Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMUs) for use in case of an emergency spacewalk; if needed, they would be used by Truly and Gardner.
Mission plan and payloads
An early plan for STS-8, released in April 1982, had scheduled it for July 1983. It was expected to be a three-day mission with four crew members, and would launch INSAT-1B, an Indian satellite, and TDRS-B, a NASA communications relay satellite. However, following problems with the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) used to deploy TDRS-A on the STS-6 mission, it was announced in May 1983 that the TDRS was not going to be flown. It was replaced in the manifest by the Payload Flight Test Article. After re-development of the IUS, TDRS-B was eventually re-manifested for the STS-51-L mission, and was lost along with the Space Shuttle Challenger and its crew when the launch failed in January 1986.
The primary element of the STS-8 mission payload was INSAT-1B. It was the second in a series of multi-purpose weather and communications satellites to be operated by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO); the first, INSAT-1A, had been launched by a Delta launch vehicle in April 1982, but had to be shut down shortly afterwards due to a failure of the onboard
reaction control system (RCS). The satellite was carried in the rear of the shuttle's payload bay, and was boosted into a Geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) by a Payload Assist Module (PAM-D), a small solid rocket upper stage, after its release from the orbiter. The satellite, with its upper stage, massed a total of , with the cradle massing another , and had cost around US$50 million.
The Payload Flight Test Article (PFTA) had been scheduled for launch in June 1984 on STS-16 in the April 1982 manifest, but by May 1983 it had been brought forward to STS-11. That month, when the TDRS missions were delayed, it was brought forward to STS-8 to fill the hole in the manifest. It was an aluminum structure resembling two wheels with a long central axle, ballasted with lead to give it a total mass of , which could be lifted by the "Canadarm" Remote Manipulator System – the Shuttle's "robot arm" – and moved around to help astronauts gain experience in using the system. It was stored in the midsection of the payload bay.
The orbiter carried the Development Flight Instrumentation (DFI) pallet in its forward payload bay; this had previously flown on Columbia to carry test equipment. The pallet was not outfitted with any flight instrumentation, but was used to mount two experiments. The first studied the interaction of ambient atomic oxygen with the structural materials of the orbiter and payload, while the second tested the performance of a heat pipe designed for use in the heat rejection systems of future spacecraft.
Four Getaway Special (GAS) payloads were carried. One studied the effects of cosmic rays on electronic equipment. The second studied the effect of the gas environment around the orbiter using ultraviolet absorption measurements, as a precursor to ultraviolet equipment being designed for Spacelab 2. A third, sponsored by the Japanese Asahi Shimbun newspaper, tried to use water vapor in two tanks to create snow crystals. This was a second attempt at an experiment first flown on STS-6, which had had to be redesigned after the water in the tanks froze solid. The last was similar to an experiment flown on STS-3, and studied the ambient levels of atomic oxygen by measuring the rates at which small carbon and osmium wafers oxidized.
The mission, in cooperation with the United States Postal Service (USPS), also carried 260,000 postal covers franked with US$9.35 express postage stamps, which were to be sold to collectors, with the profits divided between the USPS and NASA. Two storage boxes were attached to the DFI pallet, with more stored in six of the Getaway Special canisters.
A number of other experiments were to be performed inside the orbiter crew compartment. Among these was the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System, being flown for the fourth time. This separated solutions of biological materials by passing electric fields through them; the experiment aimed at supporting research into diabetes treatments. A small animal cage was flown containing six rats; no animal experiment was carried out on the flight, but a student involvement project was planned for a later mission which would use the cage, and NASA wanted to ensure it was flight-tested. The student involvement project carried out on STS-8 involved William E. Thornton using biofeedback techniques, to try to determine if they worked in microgravity. A photography experiment would attempt to study the spectrum of a luminous atmospheric glow which had been reported around the orbiter, and determine how this interacted with firings of the reaction control system (RCS).
The mission was also scheduled to carry out a series of tests with the TDRS-1 satellite which had been deployed by STS-6, to ensure the system was fully operational before it was used to support the Spacelab program on the upcoming STS-9 flight. The orbiter furthermore carried equipment to allow for encrypted transmissions, to be tested for use in future classified missions.
Support crew
John E. Blaha
Mary L. Cleave
William F. Fisher
Jeffrey A. Hoffman
Bryan D. O'Connor (ascent CAPCOM)
Crew seating arrangements
Mission summary
Launch preparations
Preparation for the mission began on June 3, 1983, with the assembly of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters (SRB) on the Mobile Launcher Platform. The boosters were stacked on June 20, 1983, and the external tank (ET) mated to the assembly on June 23, 1983. Challenger arrived at Kennedy Space Center on June 29, 1983, and was transferred to the Orbiter Processing Facility on June 30, 1983. After post-flight maintenance and preparation for the new mission, including the installation of most flight payloads, the shuttle was transferred to the Vehicle Assembly Building on July 27, 1983, and mated to the booster/tank stack. The stack was checked out on July 29 and 30, 1983, and moved to Launch Complex 39A on August 2, 1983. INSAT-1B was loaded into the orbiter when on the pad; the overall processing time from Challenger arriving at KSC to being ready for launch was only sixty-two days, a record for the program at the time.
The launch had originally been scheduled for on August 4, 1983, and was later rescheduled for on August 20, 1983. The requirement to conduct testing with the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) required a delay of ten days for the system to be ready, during which the stack remained on the launch pad. During the on-pad delay, Hurricane Barry (1983) hit the Florida coastline, making landfall just south of the Kennedy Space Center on the morning of August 25, 1983. The storm had only been identified two days earlier, and there was no time to roll Challenger back from the pad; the decision was made to secure the launch stack and ride out the storm.
Launch
Challenger finally launched at 06:32:00 UTC (02:32:00 EDT) on August 30, 1983, after a final 17-minute delay due to thunderstorms near the launch site. The launch window extended from 06:15 to 06:49. The countdown to launch was called by Mark Hess, public information officer.
The launch, which occurred in pre-dawn darkness, was the first American night launch since Apollo 17, and was watched by several thousand spectators. The unusual launching time was due to tracking requirements for the primary payload, INSAT-1B; the program would not have another night launch until STS-61-B in 1985. The crew had attempted to prepare for it by training in darkened simulators so as to keep their night vision, but in practice it was discovered that the light of the solid-fuel rocket boosters made the immediate area around the launchpad virtually as bright as a day launch.
The launch was the first to use a newly developed high-performance motor for the solid rocket boosters, which gave approximately 7% greater thrust. Post-flight analysis later showed there was nearly a burn-through of the rocket casing, a significant problem that later doomed the 51-L mission (see "Post-flight safety analysis" section below for more). This launch was also the second-to-last to use the original standard-mass steel casings for the boosters. These had been replaced by a thinner case, saving some , on STS-6 and STS-7, but because of safety concerns the next two flights used the conventional cases.
Orbital operations
After a successful insertion into a circular orbit at , the first experiments began; the first two samples were run through the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System, and measurements were taken for the atmospheric luminosities study. A hydraulic circulation pump failed, but this was worked around and it proved to have no impact on operations.
The major event of the second day (August 31, 1983) was the successful deployment of the INSAT-1B satellite, which took place at 07:48 UTC, with Challenger then maneuvering to avoid the firing of the booster motor forty minutes later. Other experimentation continued, though telemetry through TDRS was lost for around three hours, requiring manual intervention. A fire alarm sounded in the morning, indicating signs of a fire in the avionics compartment, but a second alarm remained silent and it was eventually determined to be a false alarm.
On the third and fourth days (September 1 and 2, 1983), work began with the Canadarm Remote Manipulator System and the payload test article, and communications testing through TDRS continued. The former was successful, but the latter lost contact on a number of occasions, due to problems at the White Sands ground station. As a result, the crew had to be awakened early on September 1, 1983, in order to deal with the problem. A minor cabin pressure leak on September 2, 1983, was traced to the waste management system, and quickly controlled. The orbiter performed an Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) firing on September 2, 1983, to place itself in a lower orbit, where the air density was higher and the oxygen interaction experiments would work more effectively.
On the fifth day (September 3, 1983), testing of the Canadarm continued, including a number of optional "shopping list" tests, and the TDRS tests were carried out with more success. A live press conference was held late in the day, the first in-flight press conference since Apollo 17. On the sixth day (September 4, 1983), experiment runs were completed and the crew prepared to deorbit. Two systems failures were recorded on this last day, the most serious of which involved a synchronization failure in one of the onboard computers.
While on orbit, Challenger made a number of altitude and attitude adjustments, in order to test the behavior of a Shuttle orbiter and to perform some experiments in different thermal conditions. By exposing or shading areas from the sun in an unusual way, it was possible to induce particularly warm or cold conditions and observe any resulting problems.
Landing
The mission plan called for a landing at Edwards Air Force Base, California, at 121:28 mission elapsed time (MET). On the original plan, this would have been at 07:44 UTC on September 4, 1983, before accounting for the last-minute launch delay; in the event, this was put back by one day to allow for further communications testing, and Challenger touched down at 07:40:33 UTC (00:40:33 PDT), September 5, 1983, on Runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base, on the morning of the seventh day of the mission. As with the launch, this was the first night landing of the program. The Shuttle orbiters had no on-board lights, due to the difficulty of designing landing lights to survive re-entry, and so the runway was lit by high-intensity xenon arc lamps to guide the orbiter in. There was no pressing operational requirement for a night landing, but there was a desire to prove it was possible. Footage of the landing was shown in the 1986 film SpaceCamp.
Post-flight safety analysis
The launch was carried out with no obvious anomalies, but on September 27, 1983, during post-flight inspection of the solid rocket boosters, severe corrosion was discovered in the left-hand booster. The three--thick resin lining protecting the rocket nozzle, which was designed to erode about half its thickness during firing, was found to have burned down to as little as in places. By some estimations, this left around 14 seconds of firing time before the nozzle would have ruptured, a situation which would have resulted in loss of control and the probable break-up of the spacecraft. It was later determined that this fault was due to the particular batch of resin used on this set of boosters. The burn-through problem was treated as a small mishap by the media, and did not receive significant interest until after the Challenger disaster in 1986; the only major contemporary public criticism came from NASA's Soviet counterparts. As a result of this incident, the flight of STS-9 was delayed for a month while the nozzles of its boosters were changed.
Post-flight inspection of the thermal protection system tiles found seven major debris impacts and forty-nine minor impacts, of which three and twenty-six respectively were on the orbiter's underside. This was the lowest incidence of major tile damage until at least STS-74, and compares very favorably with the program average of twenty-three major impacts to the underside. It was the first Shuttle flight with no significant problems reported for the thermal protection system. Three windows were removed from the orbiter due to pitting and hazing.
A total of thirty-three in-flight anomalies were eventually reported. As well as the issues above, STS-8's more minor problems ranged from faulty thermostats to an unusually high amount of dust in the cabin.
Scientific results
Overall, the crew successfully completed all fifty-four of the planned mission test objectives. While the INSAT deployment was a success, the satellite had problems unfolding its solar array once in geostationary orbit, and was not fully operational until the middle of September 1983. Once functional, however, it provided satisfactory service for seven years, returning 36,000 images of Earth and broadcasting television to thousands of remote Indian villages. The Payload Flight Test Article evaluation found that the Canadarm remote manipulator system was capable of moving bulky masses with some accuracy, to a precision of and 1° of alignment.
The TDRS-1 program was overall less successful, with the satellite suffering several computer failures and an overall loss of telemetry for several hours. In all, the orbiter was able to use the satellite for 65 of the planned 89 orbits, and could make successful use of the connection on about forty. The Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System equipment functioned as planned, processing several hundred times more material than would have been possible on Earth, and the Asahi Shimbun crystal experiment, flown for the second time, was able to produce snow crystals after the canister was redesigned.
Thornton's research into space adaptation sickness noted that the STS-8 astronauts had escaped severe cases, with none suffering loss of motor control; Gardner suffered a "mild case", but was still able to manage effectively, while Brandenstein – who had suffered from induced motion sickness during training operations – was entirely unaffected. The symptoms were found to abate within three days of launch.
Wake-up calls
NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during Project Gemini, and first used music to wake up a flight crew during Apollo 15. Each track is specially chosen, often by the astronauts' families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities.
See also
List of human spaceflights
List of Space Shuttle missions
References
Bibliography
External links
STS-8 info NASA Kennedy Space Center
STS-8 video highlights NSS
Space Shuttle missions
Edwards Air Force Base
1983 in spaceflight
1983 in the United States
1983 in science
Spacecraft launched in 1983
Spacecraft which reentered in 1983 |
423330 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mega-City%20One | Mega-City One | Mega-City One is a fictional city that features in the Judge Dredd comic book series and related media. A post-nuclear megalopolis covering much of what is now the Eastern United States and some of Canada, the city's exact geography depends on the writer and artist working the story. From its first appearance it has been associated with New York City's urban sprawl; originally presented as a future New York, it was retconned as the centre of a "Mega-City One" in the third issue.
The Architects' Journal placed it at No. 1 in their list of "comic book cities".
Development
When the series Judge Dredd was being developed in 1976–77 it was originally planned that the story would be set in New York, in the near future. However, when artist Carlos Ezquerra drew his first story for the series, a skyscraper in the background of one panel looked so futuristic that editor Pat Mills instructed him to draw a full-page poster of the city. Ezquerra's vision of the city – with massive tower blocks and endless roads suspended vast distances above the ground with no visible means of support – was so futuristic that it prompted a rethink, and a whole new city was proposed. Art director Doug Church suggested that the city should extend along the entire Eastern Seaboard, and be called Mega-City One, and his idea was adopted.
While the first Judge Dredd story is set in "New York 2099AD", prog 3 retconned that and said New York was just part of Mega-City One. The back of prog 3 included an Ezquerra "Futuregraph" poster of Mega-City One (a page from an unused Dredd story), which said the city stretched from Montreal to Georgia and had 150 million citizens; it was part of the "United States of the West" (USW). Prog 4 then established that Mega-City One was surrounded by wildernesses from the Atomic Wars. The 150 million population was later revised to 100 million in earlier strips and abruptly bumped to 800 million later on. The United States of the West concept was dropped entirely; a "United Cities of North America" of three megacities was mentioned in prog 42 and then itself dropped in favour of Mega-City One being an independent entity.
In early strips, the Judges existed alongside a regular police force, were popular with the citizens, and the people enjoyed robots doing the work, with the "Grand Judge" saying they would not consent to work more than ten hours a week. Over time, the strip would have the Judges as a feared police-state force with sole power; prog 118 (written when unemployment was going up in Britain) established that citizens resented being unemployed and took up bizarre crazes to deal with the boredom, and this remained part of the strip from then on.
Description
Mega-City One evolved out of a growing conurbation stretching from Boston to Washington DC, which took form in the 21st century to cope with the escalating population crisis in the United States and – as a solution chosen to deal with the high crime rate – led to the introduction of the Judge system.
Mega-City One was one of three major areas to survive the nuclear war in 2070, due to an experimental laser missile-defense system built not long before. The other two being Mega-City Two (encompassing California, Washington and Oregon) and Texas City. Apart from those megacities, the United States has been reduced to the Cursed Earth.
Eventually, Mega-City One extended to Miami, Florida, which became a holiday resort, and spread west into Ohio and/or West Virginia. The megacity was built over the top of the old cities and the polluted Ohio River, creating the lawless Undercity, though a few buildings like the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty were moved to Mega-City One for the tourists. Maps of the city show that in the early 22nd century, it stretched roughly from southern Maine down through Florida and to the north-east has absorbed the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor in Canada. 800 million citizens lived in the city at this point.
The population and city sprawl were halved by nuclear attack and Soviet invasion in 2104 (in the 1982 story "The Apocalypse War"), with the loss of the entire south in a saturation nuclear strike. The north-west and upper north were also lost, leaving the city stretching from roughly New Hampshire through North Carolina and losing the Canadian territory. A small part of the north west survived: the North West Hab Zone, separated from the rest of the city by a stretch of radioactive wasteland called Nuke Alley and linked to the main city by a bridge. The population remained at around 400 million from 2104 until 2134.
Mega-City One has a far greater population density than any city in the present-day world. Most city dwellers (citizens) live in huge apartment blocks (50,000+), though many citizens live a perpetually nomadic existence in vehicular mo-pads (mobile homes) due to inadequate housing provisions. These citizens travel the city via the many public transport routes available, rarely stopping. Some mo-pads are quite luxurious, complete with swimming pools.
For administrative purposes the city is divided into 305 sectors, most of them renamed to fit the new size of the city after the Apocalypse War, and clumped into Central, North, South, East, and West. Sectors 1 (the centre) to 300 constitute the main city. The North-West Hab Zone encompasses sectors 301-5. The Hab Zone was mostly ignored by the city and Sector 301 became disparagingly nicknamed "The Pit" due to its high crime rate, until Chief Judge Volt had it cleaned up in 2118. Other slum areas have been called "Angeltown" (Sector 13's slums) and "the Low Life". By the time of the comics setting English is no longer considered the official language of Mega-City One being replaced by a local bastardisation call Meg Speak, with each sector or sometimes even blocks having its own dialect and accent.
Following the events of the 2011–12-story Day of Chaos (set in 2134), Mega-City One was left in ruins and almost 90% of its population was killed. After decades of being the main megacity and superpower on Earth, the city is now bankrupt and in severe decline with many judges considering the situation unsustainable.
However over the following few years the city began to grow again due to immigration, taking in of refugees and the gradual return of millions of citizens who sat out the plague overseas and off world. By October 2137 the population stood at seventy two million and was growing rapidly reaching 100 million around 2139. However the destruction of the Academy of Law during Chaos Day has disrupted the supply of cadets, and it is all the remaining judges can do to cope with the expanding population as it will be years before replacement of losses is reliable again.
In 2019 a story set in 2141 stated that the population had been revised upwards to 130 million, due to a number of reasons, including the overestimation of the number of deaths in Chaos Day, a declining death rate since then, and births and immigration. It also confirmed that many citizens fled either before or during the Chaos plague and have been slowly returning in the seven years since, and that the Chaos bug disproportionately killed the elderly ensuring a higher number of fertile age survivors to repopulate the city. By this point then Chief Judge Hershey believed the city could once again safely absorb such a vast increase in numbers, as many undamaged blocks remained available to be re-inhabited.
Other territories
Mega-City One has protectorates and colonies outside of the city walls:
Mega-City One held joint jurisdiction over Atlantis, an underwater city located mid way across the Atlantic along with Brit Cit until 2143 when it was destroyed by a mafia hit squad during a failed hit, killing most of its population.
Various colonies on other planets, used as both settings and background detail in Dredd and its spin-off strips. Law and the city's central government are enforced by Colonial-Marshal Judges; indigenous aliens and MC-1 colonialists are often oppressed and some cause insurgencies. Military forces are often mentioned as being space based (see Military). The spin-off strip Insurrection showed that the Special Judicial Service have an outer-space army to deal with any colonies where the judicial staff declare independence. The main push into space began roughly in 2095, under Chief Judge Goodman, as a way of supplying the city with resources that a post-war Earth could no longer provide. The most famous colony is the penal colony on Titan, where corrupt Judges are sent.
Various farms, mines, prisons, and protectorate townships in the Cursed Earth. The Cursed Earth Auxiliaries patrol the area for Justice Department. The city used to have mutant camps, where mutants born in the city were deported, but these were ended after the repeal of the mutant apartheid laws.
Townships One through Four: since 2130, the bulk of mutant citizens live in large towns outside of the city. Law enforcement is mostly done by mutant deputies, and unlike the city they still use the jury trial system (unless a judge demands otherwise).
City Blocks
Blocks are huge and can be considered to be a small town in themselves. Each one will typically possess a hospital, gymnasium, school, and shopping district. A citizen can quite literally live their whole lives without leaving their block. Due to the high unemployment rate, boredom is rife among citizens – this, coupled with the high loyalty citizens develop to their blocks, along with a city-defence militia for most city blocks, leads to many "Block Wars", riots (more like small wars) between two or more blocks.
Blocks are named after famous or historical figures, often with current events in mind. A typical example – shortly after the Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise separation there was an episode with block war breaking out between the "Kidman" and "Cruise" Blocks. A proposed crackdown on civil rights in Britain led to a block being named David Blunkett Block in one story.
Government
Since the abolition of democratic government in America in 2070, Mega-City One has been a dictatorship run by the Justice Department. It subsequently became an independent city-state following the break-up of the United States and had already been granted autonomy within the Union in 2052. Its ruler is the Chief Judge, in current stories (as of September 2023) Judge Logan. He is accountable to a council of five senior judges. The citizens are permitted to have an elected city council and mayor, but with no significant power: the idea is that a facade of democracy will placate most people.
In 2113 a referendum was held in which the people were allowed to decide whether to restore democratic government, but by this time the memory of democracy had become so distant that the majority of citizens did not bother to vote, and most of those who did opted to retain the status quo.
In the early years of Judge Dredd, Mega-City One had not been established as a dictatorship – "The Purple People Breeder" (2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1978) mentioned "presidential candidate Howard Surb", while "Ryan's Revenge" (Dan Dare Annual 1979) had the Mayor giving orders to Justice Department. The Luna-One story arc briefly mentioned the governing body "the Grand Council of Judges" and "the Triumvirate", part of a unified state called the United Cities of North America, but this was dropped by prog 61.
List of chief judges
Judge Fargo (2031–2051)
Judge Solomon (2051–2057)
Judge Goodman (2057–2101)
Judge Cal (2101)
Judge Griffin (2101–2104)
Judge McGruder (2104–2108)
Judge Silver (2108–2112)
Judge McGruder (2112–2116)
Judge Volt (2116–2121)
Judge Hershey (2122–2131)
Judge Francisco (2131)
Judge Sinfield (acting chief judge, 2131–2132) (Usurper)
Judge Francisco (2132–2134)
Judge Hershey (2134–2141)
Judge Logan (2141–incumbent)
List of mayors
(This is not a complete list of mayors, but only of those who appeared in the comic.)
Mayor Amalfi
Mayor Jim Grubb
Mayor Dave the Orangutan, an actual orangutan who was elected as a mass protest vote against incompetent politicians.
Mayor Lindberg
Mayor Katz
Mayor Donald Byron Ambrose, actually serial killer PJ Maybe in disguise (having murdered the real Ambrose – and Katz – before the election)
Mayor Tony Blore
Mayor Denny Oneman
The identity of the current mayor is not known (as of September 2023).
A story in 2000 AD #32 featured a cameo role by a character referred to as "City Father Washington," whose status and role in the city's history has not been elaborated on.
Judges
Judges are the product of many (normally 15) years' of training and psychological conditioning. Training takes place in the Academy of Law and generally begins at age five. The Judges recruit promising children, and also grow their own
clones.
Their standard issue firearm is the Lawgiver handgun, which can fire six different kinds of ammunition. It has a handprint-reading sensor which only allows its owner to use it, and a self-destruct device to kill or maim unauthorised users. Judges ride Lawmaster bikes, which are heavily armed and have artificial intelligence.
The Judges themselves are not above the law – a violation that would earn a citizen a few months in an Iso[lation]-Cube may earn a Judge a twenty-year sentence of hard labour on Saturn's moon, Titan, after surgical modification to enable the convict to survive Titan's atmosphere. They were also expected to live in celibacy, to avoid personal attachments that might bias them or make them vulnerable to manipulation and blackmail.
The Justice Department has its own domestic intelligence division (the Public Surveillance Unit), and their own medical facilities. There are a number of specialist divisions within the Judges, notably Psi Division, which consists of psychic judges used to predict the future and read minds, and Tek Division, made of forensic scientists and engineers. The SJS (Special Judicial Squad) monitors and polices the Judges internally.
Block Judges (Judges assigned to a particular city block) also hear civil cases in each City Block, where they try civil claims.
When a street judge retires from service at the end of his career, he may choose to take the "Long Walk," leaving Mega-City One for exile outside its borders. He may do this either in the Cursed Earth, a radioactive desert outside the city walls, or in the Undercity, the ruins of New York that lie beneath the mega-city. The Long Walk begins with a brief ceremony at the city gates, wherein the retiring judge walks through an honour guard of judges as they discharge their firearms into the air, while another judge formally bids him farewell. Judges who take the Long Walk are expected never to return, but to die "bringing law to the lawless." Alternatively, retiring judges may instead be placed in administrative or teaching posts instead of taking the Long Walk.
Origin
The Judge System was created by Eustace Fargo, then special government prosecutor for street crime, between 2027 and 2031, to combat a rising tide of violent crime and to speed up the process of justice. While there was heavy protest in Congress over the idea of abandoning due process, the electorate was in favour and President Gurney (who supported Fargo's plan) was re-elected with a massive majority. The original uniforms heavily resembled those of normal American police officers, albeit with helmets and heavy body armour, and rode Lawranger motorcycles. Following the Third World War of 2070 and discovering that President Booth had stolen the election, the Judges seized power.
Civilian population
The citizens are shown to be a mixed bag. 98% are unemployed (due to advances in robotics) and range from lazy and sloth-like to highly rebellious violent criminals, bent on destroying and killing as much as they can for whatever reason they can think of at that time, if any. Most of the Judges seem to view them like a well-loved dim cat, stupid, greedy but with an unseen value that's worth protecting with everything they have. At times they show a lack of empathy towards them. For example, in his Christmas message, Chief Judge Francisco asked citizens if a large number that were on welfare could commit suicide in order to help balance the budget for the following year. Some Judges openly view citizens as a nuisance to be removed, or like Judge Manners, as a sub-human race to be used and abused as the Judges see fit.
The citizens occupy their time with many strange and outright bizarre hobbies, such as simping (recreational stupidity), bat gliding, sky surfing and peeping (spying on people at home and in public), which is illegal when done for voyeuristic purposes, but legal when done under the authority of a Judge. If any of these ever get out of hand and there is no legal justification for banning, Judges simply impose a heavy tax on them, restricting them to only the few very wealthy citizens.
Most are poorly educated and many can barely read or write, some sectors are said to be entirely illiterate, but Judges aren't that concerned, as it makes it easier for them to control and they can weed out the more intelligent simply when major crimes occur. Those that can read though are not much better, for example, when a book that detailed how to commit suicide was released, thousands of previously non suicidal citizens (including the book's author) killed themselves since they had read how to do it in the book. At one point in some of the more dangerous blocks, Judges put sedatives into the air systems to help keep the citizens more docile and easier to control.
Some show huge promise, intelligence, and have extremely useful skills, many top scientists and engineers are not Judges. Most of the cities biggest advancements in areas such as food, new materials, non weapon or military technology, medicine and architecture and construction design (including the Halls of Justice) came from ordinary citizens. All the major businesses and entertainment (apart from Justice Department propaganda channels) figures are citizens as are a lot of the city's diplomats, but they always report to a Judge before making any decisions. Not all valued skills are the same as the real world ones, examples of this are human taxidermy and professional gluttony. Most of the highly intelligent citizens end up in crime such as PJ Maybe, and Nero Narcos, as they are very limited in the wealth or power they can attain (the amount of real power a citizen can gain though is very limited) legally.
Law
Mega-City One's laws are harsh, with many crimes not found in present-day law. Possession of sugar, for example, is illegal, as is the smoking of tobacco outside of licensed Smokatoriums, and coffee is banned as an illegal stimulant. The laws are enforced by the Judges, who are a combination of a judge and police officer. Ordinary laws are enforced more harshly than the present day, as a political choice to deal with the high crime rate. Most ordinary citizens are sent to the Iso-Cubes, tiny cells located within huge prisons. For example, one strip saw a citizen sentenced to a month in the iso-cubes for littering, while in another story a citizen was given 6 months for jay walking. Judges impose immediate sentences on the spot, usually lengthy sentences of imprisonment (or "encubement"). In extreme cases even the death penalty may be imposed, although relatively sparingly compared with the present day, reserved for mass murder or endangering the security of the city, but sometimes it is used simply to make an example or to intimidate the citizens. Nevertheless, many criminals are shot to death while resisting arrest, and resistors who survive Judge assault often receive a whole-life cube term.
The Judges themselves are not exempt from the law; in fact they are expected to obey it more strictly than any other. A violation that would earn a citizen a few months in an Iso-Cube would get a Judge a twenty-year sentence, served as hard labor on Saturn's moon, Titan, after surgical modification to enable the convict to survive outside without needing an expensive space suit. (Titan is a moon of Saturn in reality, but was located over Jupiter in an early Dredd strip.) When Judges do make a minor mistake (anything where the citizen is alive and not in an intensive care ward) such as wrongful arrest or search they do have to pay the citizen a compensation fee if there is no crimes to be charged with. On that basis, if they can't find any evidence for the main charge, then they will look for any minor crime or misdemeanours to charge to citizen with to get themselves off the hook.
Firearm possession is only legal with the proper permit firearms permit, which is very hard to obtain. The only real exception is for Citidef units, which may use heavy weapons. (Since Block Mania the security on these is extreme and they are only issued during wartime.) In spite of this, many firearms are in circulation; some are sold on the black market while others are left over from the various invasions that have occurred over the past thirty years. Some families still possess twentieth-century handguns that have been handed down through the years. These are sometimes found by crime blitzes and will usually earn culprits the same penalty as a lasblaster from their time period.
Torture is normally illegal, but in extreme circumstances and with orders from the Chief Judge they employ it (both physical and psychological), for example when time is of the essence, due to the city being in severe danger (or the Justice Departments authority is). They used that reason to torture Total War cell leaders leading to the deaths of several of them. The Judges covered this up, "arresting" them by faking heart attacks, strokes or whatever was realistic or convenient at that time and then told their next of kin they had died, with this they could do whatever they wanted to them. They also used torture on the leading democrats before the democratic march, such as keeping an elderly democrat awake all night and then releasing him without charge, knowing he would have to march all day the following day and making severe threats to another involving his young children.
Military
The original United States Armed Forces no longer exists: the explanation in "Origins" was that Chief Judge Goodman had built up the Judges until they were a match for the United States Army, as a precaution against President Booth. When Booth was overthrown after the Atomic Wars, the remains of the US Army were routed and finally destroyed in 2071's Battle of Armageddon. (In the immediate aftermath of the war, military discipline broke down and the Judges had to kill or arrest soldiers that were preying on the citizens.)
Mega-City One's military forces are inconsistently portrayed. During crises inside the city, regular Judges or Citi-Def are almost always shown doing the fighting instead and the military is usually mentioned in outer space – "Day of Chaos" eventually explained that they're unlicensed to act against the civilian population. From "The Cursed Earth" onwards, the city's armed forces have usually been presented as a branch of the Judges ("Judge-Troopers"): stories by Gordon Rennie introduced a Defence-Div, 1990s spin-off Maelstrom had heavily armed STAR (Strategic Target Attack Retaliation) Judges to carry out targeted strikes, and the Insurrection serials give the Special Judicial Service its own space fleet and armed force to stamp out rebellions. In contrast, stories by John Wagner have presented the military as a separate group, with some members believing the Judges are too lenient. Uniforms differ depending on the story. The STAR Judges were given an origin as founded in 2108 by Commander Brand, with Brand and his original squad secretly left to die after committing an act of genocide in 2111 (this was covered up as a legitimate act of war and the STARs turned into martyrs, allowing Mega-City One to still claim the devastated planet).
The main military force mentioned is the Space Corps, composed of marines and fleets, who fight against alien races that threaten the colonies. (When originally introduced in The Corps spinoff, they were Judges from the Academy of Law but in later stories these are recruited citizens.) Another force are the Genetic Infantry: genetically engineered men, bred in a lab to be dedicated soldiers. (The story Warzone had an ex-Genetic Infantry soldier who was a primitive version of the Genetic Infantry from Rogue Trooper.) The Citi-Defs (Citizen Defence) are a reserve force composed of citizens. Each city block contains a Citi-Def force in case of crises, though usually they turn up in Dredd as rogue factions waging block wars.
In very rare, desperate and often last stand scenarios the Justice Departments auxiliaries are issued weapons and fight alongside Judges, such as in the latter stages of both the Apocalypse War and Judgement Day.
Mega-City One also runs spy networks and a Black Ops Division of Judges. Under Judge Bachmann, their agents were brainwashed to worship the city as a god.
Following "Day of Chaos", the regular military (particularly the Space Corps) have been helping to keep order in Mega-City One. Tensions exists between them and the Judges. By 2136, following Chaos Day and a dual war with the Xhind/colonial insurgency, Mega-City One no longer had the military power to stop a rebellion on Titan.
Crimes
Many crimes in Mega-City One are controlled by flamboyant mob bosses:
Blitzers: hitmen with self-destruct bombs implanted inside them which detonate if they surrender when apprehended.
Body-sharking: loaning money to people willing to put a loved one into cryonic storage for collateral.
Chump-dumping: conning aliens into believing Earth is a paradise, taking their money, and then dumping them into space.
Face changing crimes: the illicit use of face changing machines to commit crimes and fraud.
Futsies: People who can no longer handle the fast pace of life begin to suffer from "Future Shock," become psychotic and begin to commit crimes.
Numbers racket: buying computer passcodes for industrial theft.
Organ leggers: those who cut up citizens and sell their organs on the black market.
Perp running: transporting felons off-world.
Psycos: telepathic protection rackets.
Stookie glanding: butchering Stookies, an intelligent alien race, for the anti-aging drug they produce.
Umpty-baggers: pushers of umpty, a candy that tastes so good it forms an instant psychological addiction.
Leisure
Most work in Mega-City One is carried out by robots; this has led to problems with boredom and unemployment. Boredom has fostered many problems in the city, with citizens spending their leisure time rioting over jobs, experimenting on their neighbors, and running amok in the streets. Weird fads include Block Wars (wars between neighboring apartment blocks, waged by each block's defense militia), "ugliness clinics", and odd fashions.
Leisure in Mega-City One consists of a number of weird and wonderful futuristic hobbies and attractions, including:
The Aggro Dome was conceived as a way for frustrated citizens to let off steam without endangering their fellow Meggers. Within the domes, citizens can vent their anger on robots, mock storefronts, and parked vehicles. Aggro Limited, the owners of the Aggro Dome franchise, petitioned for Judge replicoids to be added to a number of their buildings as a target for client retaliation. The request was promptly refused. After problems on opening day Dredd did his best to close the place for good but failed. Eventually the dome closed in the mid 2120s after visitor numbers fell too low to turn a profit.
The Alien Zoos are ever-popular attractions, featuring the most bizarre creatures from the Milky Way galaxy and beyond.
The Central Mega-City Library is open free of charge to the public and is the storehouse of information on Mega-City One and beyond, past and present. Late fees are very high.
The Dream Palace is a popular leisure activity – for some, a growing necessity – and the ultimate in escapism. Customers are plugged into dream machines where their dreams are made real. Morpheus, Inc. own the original chain of dream palaces, but were unsuccessful in blocking the expansion of rival Dream Parlours, back street services utilizing reconditioned dream machines. Some parlours offer other "diversions" to supplement their income.
The Mega-City Chamber of Horrors features robot replicas of history's most infamous villains.
The Mega-City Museum is one of the tallest buildings in Mega-City One. It specializes in the history of Mega-City One, and is home to the most complete records of pre-atomic American civilization in North America. A transceiver beacon is sited atop the museum's roof, for use by the Justice Department.
The Museum of Death focuses on murderers, warfare that resulted in mass death, and historical instruments of torture.
The Palais-De-Boing is a chain of purpose-built structures designed for Boingers. Boinging is illegal outside of the Palais-De-Boing.
The Smokatoriums are giant, stinking domes – the only locations within Mega-City One limits where it is legal to smoke tobacco and nicotine-related products.
The White Cliffs of Dover were imported from a cash-starved Brit-Cit in the aftermath of the Atomic War. It remains a popular attraction even though it is nothing more than a crumbling pile of rock, chalk, and sand.
Stookie is an illegal drug made from the glands of an intelligent alien species that stops its users' aging. Withdrawal from Stookie causes users to rapidly reach their 'real' ages. In one of the Judge Dredd novels, an injection of "pure, undiluted" Stookie causes the user to revert to a younger age.
Sky surfing, where citizens use powered, floating surfboards to race and perform stunts.
Batgliding, in which citizens don winged bat suits to fly on the thermals above Mega-City One.
Transit systems
The high population density of Mega-City One requires a complex system of transport. This often serves as accommodation as well as a means of getting around the city.
Pedestrian
Back street: Two-way passages, located in Old Town and City Bottom.
Broad-Way: A large pedestrian plaza.
Crossway: Any pedway intersection (a.k.a. Crosslink).
Eeziglide: One-way pedestrian conveyance that functions as a human conveyor-belt.
Pedway: Pedestrian-only walkway found right across the City at all levels. Subpeds are enclosed pedways that run under Pedways.
Zipstrip: One or two-way pedestrian walkway that links blocks and smaller interchanges. Enclosed zipstrips are called Pipeways.
Vehicular
Boomway: One or two-way multi-level Mega-Way (between four and ten lanes width, two to four levels height).
Filter: One-way exit or entrance to and from parking areas.
Flyover: Skedway that passes over a city block (a.k.a. Overzoom).
Inter-Block Zoom: Maglev train-system which replaced the old Sky-Rail network in the late twenty-first century. Provides a link between all the city blocks in any given sector.
Intersection: Road junction.
Judge's Lane: Two-way road that runs parallel to major roadways, reserved for Justice Department usage.
Median Strip: Protective barrier which prevents accidents in one half of a road from spreading to the other half.
Mega Circular: Two-way, six-lane Meg-Way which bypasses through-sector traffic to benefit long-distance drivers.
Meg-Way: Largest road design in Mega-City One. Two-way, between four and twenty lanes, and central reservation (a.k.a. Megaway, Speedway, Throughway, X-Pressway).
Parkarama: Ground vehicle park.
Podport: Hover vehicle park.
Skedway: One-way highway, between one and five lanes. Interskeds connect one skedway to another (a.k.a. Feedway). Underskeds are single-lane roads, often reserved for public service traffic only, that pass underneath skeds. Overskeds are the same, but pass over skeds.
Sky-Rail: Obsolete monorail public transit-system introduced in the early 21st century. One-third of Mega-City One still actively uses the Sky-Rail network while it awaits upgrading to the zoom-system. The largest Sky-Rail intersection in the City is Hell's Junction.
Slipzoom: One-way, between one and four lanes, used for larger interchanges. An Underzoom (a.k.a. Flyunder) is a single-lane road often reserved for public service traffic only that passes under a Slipzoom.
Superslab: The longest Meg-Way in Mega-City One, bisecting the City from north to south. Twenty-four lanes, 1,220 kilometers in length (a.k.a. Mega-City 500).
Wayby: Small zones set aside Meg-Ways and Skedways in regular intervals where drivers can pull-off and temporarily park their vehicles.
Zoomtube: The most recent traffic innovation in Mega-City One. An enclosed road-system where all traffic is platooned and computer-controlled for optimum speed and driver-safety.
History
As Judge Dredd stories are set 122 years into the future and progress forward in 'real time' (stories from 1977 are set in 2099, and stories from are set in ), they have an extensive fictional chronology.
Stories in earlier issues would link Dredd to the chronology of the Invasion!, Ro-Busters, and Harlem Heroes strips: Mega-City One's construction is mentioned in Ro-Busters once it had moved to 2000 AD, and in a story that follows from Invasion!, while Mega-City One appears in Harlem Heroes and its lead character Giant is the father of Judge Giant. The former two strips have since been retconned out of Dredd history.
Before 2027: By the late 2020s a conurbation stretches from New York to Washington DC in an attempt to contain the populace of the East Coast states. This will eventually become the first Mega-City, a new kind of urban development to house greater numbers of people. The development causes huge amounts of civil unrest and gang-related crime.
2027: An alliance of street gangs, led by the P Street Posse, storms the White House itself. Due to intimidation of the jury, no convictions occur. This incident will lead to the creation of the Judge System to police the country. Eustace Fargo is appointed Special Prosecutor for Street Crime by President Thomas Gurney.
2028: President Gurney re-elected due to his support for instant street justice.
2031: First deployment of the Judges in the United States, led by Chief Judge Fargo. Special centres train the new recruits, often hand-picked from the regular police, and old style judges have to undergo the new judge training program with the power to convict and sentence criminals on the spot.
2039: The success of Mega-City One inspires the creation of more Mega-Cities – Mega-City Two is planned to cover the Western seaboard and Texas City will cover Texas and other southern states. Other nations will follow.
2050: Earth is a mess of pollution, starvation, and wars. On June 3, Major Indira Knight, who developed America's orbital laser weapons, is the first human to leave the solar system. The Harlem Heroes win the World Aeroball Championship.
2051: Fargo resigns and attempts suicide, but survives with serious injuries. He is secretly placed in suspended animation and his death is faked. Deputy Chief Judge Solomon becomes chief judge.
2052: Congress passes the Autonomy Act, giving extensive powers of self-government to the three American mega-cities. Each mega-city has its own chief judge: Solomon continues to serve as chief judge of Mega-City One.
2057: Deputy Chief Judge Goodman becomes chief judge and creates the Council of Five. Psi Division created.
2064: A new process of accelerated cloning, with DNA taken from senior Judges, is created by Morton Judd to quickly bolster Justice Department's ranks. Joe and Rico Dredd are two of the first clones from this process, growing to physiological age 5 in a matter of months.
2066: Six clones, including the Dredd twins, are inducted into the Academy of Law.
2068: Vice President Robert L. Booth is elected president, gaining support under the line that the rest of the world was living off America's backs. (It later emerges that he rigged the election.)
2069: International relations are soured when Booth sends troops to seize control of foreign oil reserves in the Middle East. This will later be consider part of World War Three between "Western Capitalist Nations" and Arab states but Brit-Cit is the only European state not to condemn it.
2070: President Booth starts the Atomic Wars on June 12, 2070 to mass public support; this comes as the senior judges are discussing whether to confront him. Despite Booth's promises, America's nuclear screens fail to keep out many of the retaliatory strikes. Most of the planet is devastated in a nuclear holocaust, and the world's Mega-Cities are among the few to survive relatively unscathed due to experimental laser defences. All Judges and the military are deployed to maintain order in the decaying society, with the Judges forced to constantly fight against soldiers for committing criminal acts. It is discovered that Booth rigged the election and killed a witness to conceal the crime. Shocked and betrayed, the citizens of America rise up against the government and call for the Judges to take over the country. Fargo, secretly reawoken from suspended animation, advises Goodman to take over as ruler of the United States in a coup. Booth is sentenced to 100 years in suspended animation, but has enough loyal followers and robotic Mek-troops to fight a civil war against the Judges until 2071.
2071: The Battle of Armageddon. At the heart of the Cursed Earth, near Mega-City Two, Booth's army is finally defeated at the cost of the lives of one hundred thousand judges and troopers. The Hiroshima Accord is settled by the various global Mega-Cities.
2070+: Massive inflow of homeless refugees from the Cursed Earth pour into the Mega-Cities, causing a massive amount of block construction. Space is becoming even tighter. Genetic apartheid laws are soon brought in to keep mutants out of Mega-City One: officially this is because the mutants are irrationally violent against "norms", and to protect the gene pool from contamination.
2077–78: Mega-City One citizens are still running water through geiger counters. A desire for decadence causes the bloody new deathsport inferno to take the world by storm. The Harlem Heroes reform as the Harlem Hellcats. When the Hellcats refuse to work with the gambling syndicates, they're forced to play to the death against robots; the brutality of the '78 Hellcats Murders leads to scared fans leaving and a judicial crackdown that destroys the sport.
2080: The Mega-City 5000 bike race is banned when the Mutant and Spacer gangs start killing each other mid-race. (It will continue illegally until 2100) The first competitive eating contests begin.
2083–86: Civil war breaks out between Mega-City One and Texas City, the latter feeling it is being dominated by the other Mega-Cities while MC-One and Two oppose its secession in the interests of unity and the highly valuable resources Texas owns. The war leads to years of stalemate, and Mega-City One decides the conflict is pointless and allows Texas to secede. Note: this event possibly retconned by story "Origins."
2088: Establishment of Luna-1, a moon-based Mega-City, by all three American Mega-Cities to renew and cement relations between them. Government of the colony is divided initially between all three cities, with a senior judge being sent every six months to take over as Judge-Marshal.
2089: The first instance of Future Shock Syndrome or "futsie".
2095: Chief Judge Goodman announces a policy of mass interstellar colonisation, as post-war Earth is low on resources. A decadent youth culture has built up around drugs, the pinstripe sound, and illegal comics.
2099: Population is now over 800 million. Chief Judge Goodman, possessed by a malevolent psychic mutant called the Monkey, is forced to undermine the stability of the city to have it descend into anarchy; Judge Dredd takes the Monkey out. The Statue of Judgement is erected in honour of the Judges. Renegade droid Call-Me-Kenneth starts the highly destructive First Robot War, devastating large areas of the city. Judge Dredd becomes the last Judge-Marshal of Luna-1 to serve a six-month tour of duty: Judge Tex succeeds him as permanent Marshal of Luna-1.
2101: Deputy Chief Judge Cal, head of the Special Judicial Squad, has Goodman assassinated and assumes control. He brainwashes most of the Judges into obeying him, brings in alien Kleggs as mercenaries, and implements increasingly insane and dictatorial rules – twice sentencing the entire city to death. Judge Dredd leads a rebellion against him and eventually succeeds, with resistance member Judge Griffin taking over as chief judge. Under Cal, a vast wall has been built around Mega-City One. The powerful mutant Father Earth leads a massed attack on Mega-City One, destroying Power Tower (a controlled volcano) and unleashing a flood of lava, before being stopped. A few months later, an invasion of mutant spiders leads to the burning of entire sectors.
2102: Judge Death arrives in Mega-City One and kills dozens before he is captured. The dying Psi-Judge Feyy predicts an apocalypse will occur in 2120 that can only be averted if a figure known as the Judge Child, who will become Chief Judge, can be found; Judge Dredd leads a mission to retrieve the Child, only to determine him to be evil and leave him stranded on an alien world.
2103: The Soviet block of East-Meg One, using robotic pirate Captain Skank as a proxy, secretly seize control of Mega-City One nuclear weapons and launch an attack on the city, destroying several sectors; after being caught, they nuke one of their own sectors as compensation. Judge Death is freed by the other Dark Judges; they go on a killing spree in Billy Carter Block before their physical forms are destroyed.
2104: Orlok the Assassin drugs the city water supply, increasing the aggression of the population and leading to block wars springing up across the entire city – which turns out to have just been a diversion. With the Judges tied up with the Block Mania, the Sov Judges of East-Meg One launch the Apocalypse War. A coordinated attack shatters Mega-City One's defences, leaves multiple blocks destroyed by nuclear weaponry (the south of the city faces "total nuke out!" killing 150 million), and leads to a massed invasion by Sov forces. A bitter resistance is put up by Judges and Citizen-Defence units, despite heavy losses and the death (after being brainwashed into a Sov agent) of Chief Judge Griffin. Victory is achieved when a team led by Dredd causes the nuclear devastation of the entire East-Meg One. Judge McGruder becomes the new chief judge and oversees the rebuilding of the devastated city.
2107: A time travel mission is deployed to 2120 to determine the truth of Feyy's death-bed prediction. The Mega-City One of the future is discovered to be devastated and ruled by demonic creatures (including a zombie Judge Dredd) under a mutated form of the Judge Child – now revealed to be responsible for the great disaster. The Judges take action to ensure this future is averted. Later the Dark Judges gain physical form again and, using personal teleporters, cause massacres across the city – even in the Grand Hall of Justice – without being stopped. They are eventually defeated and trapped in dimensional limbo.
2108: Shojun the Warlord unleashes the demonic Seven Samurai on Mega-City One, killing thousands – including the head of Psi-Division. McGruder steps down and is replaced by Judge Silver. Pro-democracy activists take over a TV station and are executed live on air by Dredd.
2109: Under Silver's orders, Dredd leads the Judges in a dirty-tricks operation to undermine the upcoming Democratic March – including having Wally Squad (undercover) Judges in the crowd provoke a riot, so the Judges have an excuse to go in and use violence while seemingly having the moral high ground.
2110: Morton Judd and his Judge-clones – the Judda – launch an attack on the Hall of Justice. They are defeated and their base in the Oz Radback is destroyed. A Dredd-clone named Kraken survives and is eventually turned into a Mega-City Judge.
2112: Fortean manifestations occur in the city and across the globe, as the subterranean Deros attempt to invade; an East Meg 2/MC1 Psi team stops them. Dredd resigns and takes the Long Walk, following doubts about the Judge System caused both by Kraken and his role in breaking up the Democratic March. Silver covers up Dredd's retirement and Kraken assumes Dredd's place. While in the Cursed Earth, Dredd is injured and rendered amnesiac by the Sisters of Death. Meanwhile, the Sisters of Death are able to psychically influence Kraken into helping them cross over into Mega-City One and to free the Dark Judges from limbo. The city is turned into a Necropolis – the Judges are under psychic control, with Silver abandoning his post and being turned into a zombie for Death's amusement; decay, disease, starvation and suicide are rampant; and the Dark Judges hold daily cullings. A handful of judges who escaped brainwashing, including Dredd and McGruder returned from their Long Walks, are able to banish the Sisters, execute Kraken and capture the Dark Judges (except Death), but not before 60 million citizens have been killed. McGruder assumes the post of Chief Judge again, but without a Council of Five. The Hunters Club organises the sponsored charity massacre "Death Aid" for Necropolis orphans. The anonymous figure later known as Tempest takes covert control of Mega-City One's criminal underworld.
2113: Under Dredd's urging, a referendum is held where the citizens will vote whether or not, following the failure of the Judges to stop Necropolis, to bring back democracy. Judge Grice and others attempt to assassinate Dredd to stop this, and are arrested. The citizens, as Dredd anticipated, vote to keep the Judges – those few that can be bothered to vote. The undead Silver tries to reassume command but is executed for dereliction of duty.
2114: Judgement Day – the time-travelling Sabbat the Necromagus unleashes zombies upon every Mega-City on Earth. An international coalition of Judges is sent to take him out, but not before five entire Mega-Cities have been nuked when it appears they're lost to the zombies. The final death toll is three billion. Following the loss of many Judges to the zombies, McGruder instigates the Mechanismo project – robot Judges – to the outrage of many Senior Judges, as it becomes clear she is increasingly senile and unstable.
2115: Grice breaks out of the Titan penal colony and takes over the city by infecting the population with the deadly Meat Virus, incapacitating many Judges. After much random death and destruction, including the destruction of the Statue of Judgement, Grice is defeated. Dredd deliberately sabotages the Mechanismo project.
2116: A gathering of Senior Judges attempt to make McGruder step down but to no avail. After her pet Mechanismo project goes wrong and a rogue Mechanismo robot tries to kill her, she finally steps down from office. An election is held among the Judges and Judge Volt becomes the new chief judge.
2117: Satan emerges from the fallen Icarus asteroid, shrugs off every Justice Department attack and threatens to destroy the city; Psi-Judge Anderson barely defeats him.
2118: Judicial crackdown on the Frendz crime syndicate in Sector 301 leads to major retaliation, with heavy rioting and gang violence that puts the Sector's judges in a retreat. After a siege at Traffic Station Alamo, the battle is won by the Judges. McGruder dies in battle in the Cursed Earth (rather than compulsory euthanasia). Mega-City One briefly attacked by dune sharks.
2121: Fifteen million children depart the city for an underground haven in the Cursed Earth. Crime lord Nero Narcos triggers the Mark II Lawgivers to self-destruct and then starts the Second Robot War. The Judges are briefly overthrown before Dredd, with help from Brit-Cit, reprograms Narcos' robot reinforcements to turn on their comrades and the Judges are able to retake control. Judge Volt commits suicide over the event, which is hushed up; Judge Hershey becomes the new chief judge.
2123: An army composed of perps from parallel universes, led by an alter-dimensional Judge Cal, invade Mega-City One. Mega-City One, Brit-Cit, and Hondo ally to prevent a partnership between East-Meg Two and the alien Lawlords, an obvious first step in a Lawlord conquest of Earth.
2124: Orlok captured, but not before releasing a virus that kills tens of thousands of citizens. Judge Death escapes confinement.
2125: Mutant terrorist Mr Bones attacks the Hall of Justice with a hostile alien species. Orlok put on trial and then executed on live TV.
2126: Terrorist group Total War triggers multiple nuclear bombs, resulting in the deaths of four million people.
2127: Hundreds of thousands of citizens have been left homeless by the bombings, and live in overcrowded, crime-ridden emergency camps. The Half-Life plague, spread by a traitor in Psi Division, spreads a wave of murderous violence that eventually kills one million people. The Sisters of Death launch another attack, with entire blocks being wiped out by plagues and poltergeist activity.
2128: Mega-City One leads a peacekeeping mission to Ciudad Barranquilla during a civil war; this turns out to be a pretense for regime change, putting in a new Supreme Judge that they can control.
2129: Death of Judge Fargo. A portal opens to the dark-matter composed fifth dimension Kaluza; demonic creatures invade the city, slaughtering whole sectors and causing crime-increasing psychic backlash until the Judges invaded Kaluza and shut the portal down. Thirty city-blocks designed by Findhorn Gask turn out to secretly be giant robots, which come to life and rampage through the city, before being convinced to stop and turned into a satellite city. Council of Five discusses and rejects a proposal by Dredd to end the mutant ban; rejection followed by a massive crackdown by Dredd on the city's Mutant Farm facilities. Attempted coup by Space Corps veterans under General Vincent. Serial killer PJ Maybe, under a false identity, becomes Mayor of Mega-City One.
2130: The anti-mutant laws are discussed again due to pressure from Dredd and repealed out of fear he will resign otherwise; there is widespread rioting by citizens as a result, followed by frequent hate crimes against mutant migrants.
2131: Events and disasters from the Bible devastate the Low Life. Senior judges, against the mutant rights laws, force a vote on replacing Hershey as chief judge in the hope of undoing the changes. Judge Francisco becomes chief judge, and the entire Council of Five is replaced. The decision is made to build townships for mutants, and Dredd is exiled to them. The townships will use mutants as Deputies and allow trial-by-jury. Subtle conflict exists between Francisco and his Council.
2132: Deputy Chief Judge Sinfield usurps Francisco using brainwashing drugs and becomes acting chief judge. Laws become even harsher for mutants. PJ Maybe attempts to assassinate Sinfield, hospitalising him, and his identity is discovered by the Judges. Sinfield is arrested and Francisco returns to office. MC-1 covertly deploys psychic weapons in Sino-Cit territory, testing how they can handle psi-warfare. After a vicious war with corrupt Judges, the Hondo yakuza take over the Low Life's criminal underworld.
2133: Francisco attempts to balance the budget with various cost-cutting measures, with the buzzword "the Big Community". A nuclear bomb is detonated in Sector 17, killing half a million people. The Low Life's Judges, particularly the Wally Squad, are purged due to criminal infiltration. The Black Ops Division under Judge Bachmann quietly assassinates the Township Chief Judge of mutant Township Three and his deputies, in order to put a less liberal Judge in charge. New elections for Mayor are held, with several candidates killed by an escaped Maybe; East-Meg agents capture a prominent biologist and prepare to unleash the "Chaos Bug" bio-weapon on the city.
2134: The Chaos Bug is released, in conjunction with multiple terrorist assaults and Sov sabotage – foreign allies only send robots due to fear of infection. Most of the Academy of Law and Public Surveillance are killed (and the Statue of Judgement destroyed); the Dark Judges temporarily escape. A (rejected) proposal to simply murder the infected is made public, sparking a vast uprising that devastates the city and allows the Bug to spread; an overwhelmed Justice Department is forced to genuinely murder the infected and only wins against the uprising because the smoke from burning blocks drives insurgents off the streets. By the time the virus dies out, 350 million citizens and 60% of the judges are dead; Justice Department is near collapse, bolstered by a 40,000 strong mutant army from the Cursed Earth townships. Francisco resigns and Hershey forms an interim government. The economy has collapsed and welfare ends; Space Corps Marines are recalled to the city to help restore order but are soon at odds with both Judges and citizens after trying to airstrike a rebellious block. Judge Bachmann attempts a coup, in which many judges and citizens are killed; it is prevented in part by a returning Judge Smiley, founder of Black Ops.
2135: After a trial attack on Gateway colony, the alien Xhind launch an invasion of human space; the war lasts sixteen weeks. The Battle of 43 Rega is Mega-City One's one chance to stop the Xhind reaching the Inner Colonies and relies on a peace deal with Luther's rebel forces; immediately after victory, MC-1 forces massacre the rebels.
2136: Under ex-Judge Aimee Nixon, the Titan convicts revolt and leave to form an independent colony on Enceladus; the weaker MC-1 is forced to accept this. Justice Department is exposed as having 24/7 surveillance in all of the newly built city blocks and suspend the program after widespread riots (the journalist who broke the story is later 'murdered'). The alien Lawlords take control of the 2050s orbital lasers and declare rule over Mega-City One, but are beaten back.
2137: By October 2137 the population stands at seventy two million and is growing rapidly. However the destruction of the Academy of Law during Chaos Day has disrupted the supply of cadets, and it is all the remaining judges can do to cope with the expanding population as it will be years before replacement of losses is reliable again.
2138: Texas City attempts to take over Mega-City One in a coup, but is thwarted by Judge Dredd and others.
2139: Mega City Population estimated at 100 million citizens.
2140: Late in the year Dredd discovers the involvement of Judge Smiley in the events that led up to the Apocalypse War. With assistance from other Judges, Dredd ambushes and kills Smiley on the west wall.
2141: Continuing return of those who fled the city and the discovery that the initial death toll from Chaos day had been overestimated sees the city's population return to 130 million. Chief Judge Hershey announces her intention to leave the role for the second time and nominates Judge Logan to succeed her in the subsequent election. After appointing a Mechanismo robot to the Council of Five there was an attempted coup against him by former council members. Intervention by Dredd lead to the conspirators surrendering and being detained.<ref>2000AD prog 2122</ref>
Other cities mentioned in Judge Dredd
The first mention of other megacities came in Robot Wars, with a Texas City Oil freighter. In the later Luna 1, when Dredd was appointed Judge-Marshall of the Luna-1 colony, the narration states that the colony is run by "the 3 great cities of North America" of which one is Texas City in the next issue. The First Luna Olympics would introduce "the Sov-Cities". Mega-City Two on the West coast was introduced in the story The Cursed Earth (1978). Since then, the exact number, location, nature, and even name of megacities fluctuates depending on the writer and strip.
In other media
Film
Mega-City One is the initial setting of the 1995 film, though the majority of the second act shifts to Cursed Earth and the outer walls. Nigel Phelps was the production designer that oversaw the design of the city, chosen because he previously designed the fantastical version of Gotham City for Tim Burton's Batman. Other illustrators that contributed designs for the city included Simon Murton and Matt Codd.
Mega-City One is the setting of the 2012 film Dredd, though it occupies a smaller area than described in the comics. According to Judge Dredd (Karl Urban), the boundaries of Mega-City One reach "from Boston to Washington D.C." (similar to the real-life concept of the Northeast megalopolis) and contains a population of 800 million. The city blocks are large, brutalist structures that tend to be slum areas; each block can seal itself off with blast shields and communications blackouts in case of war. Technology is much less advanced (outside of Justice Department equipment) and all non-Judge vehicles resemble early-21st-century models.
TVJudge Dredd: Mega City One is a TV series that was announced as in development on 10 May 2017. The population of the city in the TV series is advertised as "four hundred million citizens".BBC News: Judge Dredd TV Show: Rebellion's CEO talks about production
References
Sources
"The A–Z of Judge Dredd," by Mike Butcher (Hamlyn, 1995). ()
External links
Travels in Toon Town – part 2, Building Design'', September 26, 2007
Lowlife: Creation Part Five: All The Joy I See Through These Architect's Eyes, by D'Israeli, April 1, 2009
Judge Dredd
Fictional populated places in the United States
Megacities in fiction |
423387 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifreeze%20protein | Antifreeze protein | Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) or ice structuring proteins refer to a class of polypeptides produced by certain animals, plants, fungi and bacteria that permit their survival in temperatures below the freezing point of water. AFPs bind to small ice crystals to inhibit the growth and recrystallization of ice that would otherwise be fatal. There is also increasing evidence that AFPs interact with mammalian cell membranes to protect them from cold damage. This work suggests the involvement of AFPs in cold acclimatization.
Non-colligative properties
Unlike the widely used automotive antifreeze, ethylene glycol, AFPs do not lower freezing point in proportion to concentration. Rather, they work in a noncolligative manner. This phenomenon allows them to act as an antifreeze at concentrations 1/300th to 1/500th of those of other dissolved solutes. Their low concentration minimizes their effect on osmotic pressure. The unusual properties of AFPs are attributed to their selective affinity for specific crystalline ice forms and the resulting blockade of the ice-nucleation process.
Thermal hysteresis
AFPs create a difference between the melting point and freezing point (busting temperature of AFP bound ice crystal) known as thermal hysteresis. The addition of AFPs at the interface between solid ice and liquid water inhibits the thermodynamically favored growth of the ice crystal. Ice growth is kinetically inhibited by the AFPs covering the water-accessible surfaces of ice.
Thermal hysteresis is easily measured in the lab with a nanolitre osmometer. Organisms differ in their values of thermal hysteresis. The maximum level of thermal hysteresis shown by fish AFP is approximately −3.5 °C (Sheikh Mahatabuddin et al., SciRep)(29.3 °F). In contrast, aquatic organisms are exposed only to −1 to −2 °C below freezing. During the extreme winter months, the spruce budworm resists freezing at temperatures approaching −30 °C.
The rate of cooling can influence the thermal hysteresis value of AFPs. Rapid cooling can substantially decrease the nonequilibrium freezing point, and hence the thermal hysteresis value. Consequently, organisms cannot necessarily adapt to their subzero environment if the temperature drops abruptly.
Freeze tolerance versus freeze avoidance
Species containing AFPs may be classified as
Freeze avoidant: These species are able to prevent their body fluids from freezing altogether. Generally, the AFP function may be overcome at extremely cold temperatures, leading to rapid ice growth and death.
Freeze tolerant: These species are able to survive body fluid freezing. Some freeze tolerant species are thought to use AFPs as cryoprotectants to prevent the damage of freezing, but not freezing altogether. The exact mechanism is still unknown. However, it is thought AFPs may inhibit recrystallization and stabilize cell membranes to prevent damage by ice. They may work in conjunction with ice nucleating proteins (INPs) to control the rate of ice propagation following freezing.
Diversity
There are many known nonhomologous types of AFPs.
Fish AFPs
Antifreeze glycoproteins or AFGPs are found in Antarctic notothenioids and northern cod. They are 2.6-3.3 kD. AFGPs evolved separately in notothenioids and northern cod. In notothenioids, the AFGP gene arose from an ancestral trypsinogen-like serine protease gene.
Type I AFP is found in winter flounder, longhorn sculpin and shorthorn sculpin. It is the best documented AFP because it was the first to have its three-dimensional structure determined. Type I AFP consists of a single, long, amphipathic alpha helix, about 3.3-4.5 kD in size. There are three faces to the 3D structure: the hydrophobic, hydrophilic, and Thr-Asx face.
Type I-hyp AFP (where hyp stands for hyperactive) are found in several righteye flounders. It is approximately 32 kD (two 17 kD dimeric molecules). The protein was isolated from the blood plasma of winter flounder. It is considerably better at depressing freezing temperature than most fish AFPs. The ability is partially derived from its many repeats of the Type I ice-binding site.
Type II AFPs (e.g. ) are found in sea raven, smelt and herring. They are cysteine-rich globular proteins containing five disulfide bonds. Type II AFPs likely evolved from calcium dependent (c-type) lectins. Sea ravens, smelt, and herring are quite divergent lineages of teleost. If the AFP gene were present in the most recent common ancestor of these lineages, it is peculiar that the gene is scattered throughout those lineages, present in some orders and absent in others. It has been suggested that lateral gene transfer could be attributed to this discrepancy, such that the smelt acquired the type II AFP gene from the herring.
Type III AFPs are found in Antarctic eelpout. They exhibit similar overall hydrophobicity at ice binding surfaces to type I AFPs. They are approximately 6kD in size. Type III AFPs likely evolved from a sialic acid synthase (SAS) gene present in Antarctic eelpout. Through a gene duplication event, this gene—which has been shown to exhibit some ice-binding activity of its own—evolved into an effective AFP gene by loss of the N-terminal part.
Type IV AFPs () are found in longhorn sculpins. They are alpha helical proteins rich in glutamate and glutamine. This protein is approximately 12KDa in size and consists of a 4-helix bundle. Its only posttranslational modification is a pyroglutamate residue, a cyclized glutamine residue at its N-terminus.
Plant AFPs
The classification of AFPs became more complicated when antifreeze proteins from plants were discovered. Plant AFPs are rather different from the other AFPs in the following aspects:
They have much weaker thermal hysteresis activity when compared to other AFPs.
Their physiological function is likely in inhibiting the recrystallization of ice rather than in preventing ice formation.
Most of them are evolved pathogenesis-related proteins, sometimes retaining antifungal properties.
Insect AFPs
There are a number of AFPs found in insects, including those from Dendroides, Tenebrio and Rhagium beetles, spruce budworm and pale beauty moths, and midges (same order as flies). Insect AFPs share certain similarities, with most having higher activity (i.e. greater thermal hysteresis value, termed hyperactive) and a repetitive structure with a flat ice-binding surface. Those from the closely related Tenebrio and Dendroides beetles are homologous and each 12–13 amino-acid repeat is stabilized by an internal disulfide bond. Isoforms have between 6 and 10 of these repeats that form a coil, or beta-solenoid. One side of the solenoid has a flat ice-binding surface that consists of a double row of threonine residues. Other beetles (genus Rhagium) have longer repeats without internal disulfide bonds that form a compressed beta-solenoid (beta sandwich) with four rows of threonine residus, and this AFP is structurally similar to that modelled for the non-homologous AFP from the pale beauty moth. In contrast, the AFP from the spruce budworm moth is a solenoid that superficially resembles the Tenebrio protein, with a similar ice-binding surface, but it has a triangular cross-section, with longer repeats that lack the internal disulfide bonds. The AFP from midges is structurally similar to those from Tenebrio and Dendroides, but the disulfide-braced beta-solenoid is formed from shorter 10 amino-acids repeats, and instead of threonine, the ice-binding surface consists of a single row of tyrosine residues. Springtails (Collembola) are not insects, but like insects, they are arthropods with six legs. A species found in Canada, which is often called a "snow flea", produces hyperactive AFPs. Although they are also repetitive and have a flat ice-binding surface, the similarity ends there. Around 50% of the residues are glycine (Gly), with repeats of Gly-Gly- X or Gly-X-X, where X is any amino acid. Each 3-amino-acid repeat forms one turn of a polyproline type II helix. The helices then fold together, to form a bundle that is two helices thick, with an ice-binding face dominated by small hydrophobic residues like alanine, rather than threonine. Other insects, such as an Alaskan beetle, produce hyperactive antifreezes that are even less similar, as they are polymers of sugars (xylomannan) rather than polymers of amino acids (proteins). Taken together, this suggests that most of the AFPs and antifreezes arose after the lineages that gave rise to these various insects diverged. The similarities they do share are the result of convergent evolution.
Sea ice organism AFPs
Many microorganisms living in sea ice possess AFPs that belong to a single family. The diatoms Fragilariopsis cylindrus and F. curta play a key role in polar sea ice communities, dominating the assemblages of both platelet layer and within pack ice. AFPs are widespread in these species, and the presence of AFP genes as a multigene family indicates the importance of this group for the genus Fragilariopsis. AFPs identified in F. cylindrus belong to an AFP family which is represented in different taxa and can be found in other organisms related to sea ice (Colwellia spp., Navicula glaciei, Chaetoceros neogracile and Stephos longipes and Leucosporidium antarcticum) and Antarctic inland ice bacteria (Flavobacteriaceae), as well as in cold-tolerant fungi (Typhula ishikariensis, Lentinula edodes and Flammulina populicola).
Several structures for sea ice AFPs have been solved. This family of proteins fold into a beta helix that form a flat ice-binding surface. Unlike the other AFPs, there is not a singular sequence motif for the ice-binding site.
AFP found from the metagenome of the ciliate Euplotes focardii and psychrophilic bacteria has an efficient ice re-crystallization inhibition ability. 1 μM of Euplotes focardii consortium ice-binding protein (EfcIBP) is enough for the total inhibition of ice re-crystallization in –7.4 °C temperature. This ice-recrystallization inhibition ability helps bacteria to tolerate ice rather than preventing the formation of ice. EfcIBP produces also thermal hysteresis gap, but this ability is not as efficient as the ice-recrystallization inhibition ability. EfcIBP helps to protect both purified proteins and whole bacterial cells in freezing temperatures. Green fluorescent protein is functional after several cycles of freezing and melting when incubated with EfcIBP. Escherichia coli survives longer periods in 0 °C temperature when the efcIBP gene was inserted to E. coli genome. EfcIBP has a typical AFP structure consisting of multiple beta-sheets and an alpha-helix. Also, all the ice-binding polar residues are at the same site of the protein.
Evolution
The remarkable diversity and distribution of AFPs suggest the different types evolved recently in response to sea level glaciation occurring 1–2 million years ago in the Northern hemisphere and 10-30 million years ago in Antarctica. Data collected from deep sea ocean drilling has revealed that the development of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current was formed over 30 million years ago. The cooling of Antarctic imposed from this current caused a mass extinction of teleost species that were unable to withstand freezing temperatures. Notothenioids species with the antifreeze gylcoprotein were able to survive the glaciation event and diversify into new niches.
This independent development of similar adaptations is referred to as convergent evolution. Evidence for convergent evolution in Northern cod (Gadidae) and Notothenioids is supported by the findings of different spacer sequences and different organization of introns and exons as well as unmatching AFGP tripeptide sequences, which emerged from duplications of short ancestral sequences which were differently permuted (for the same tripeptide) by each group. These groups diverged approximately 7-15 million years ago. Shortly after (5-15 mya), the AFGP gene evolved from an ancestral pancreatic trypsinogen gene in Notothenioids. AFGP and trypsinogen genes split via a sequence divergence - an adaptation which occurred alongside the cooling and eventual freezing of the Antarctic Ocean. The evolution of the AFGP gene in Northern cod occurred more recently (~3.2 mya) and emerged from a noncoding sequence via tandem duplications in a Thr-Ala-Ala unit. Antarctic notothenioid fish and artic cod, Boreogadus saida, are part of two distinct orders and have very similar antifreeze glycoproteins. Although the two fish orders have similar antifreeze proteins, cod species contain arginine in AFG, while Antarctic notothenioid do not. The role of arginine as an enhancer has been investigated in Dendroides canadensis antifreeze protein (DAFP-1) by observing the effect of a chemical modification using 1-2 cyclohexanedione. Previous research has found various enhancers of this bettles' antifreeze protein including a thaumatin-like protein and polycarboxylates. Modifications of DAFP-1 with the arginine specific reagent resulted in the partial and complete loss of thermal hysteresis in DAFP-1, indicating that arginine plays a crucial role in enhancing its ability. Different enhancer molecules of DAFP-1 have distinct thermal hysteresis activity. Amornwittawat et al. 2008 found that the number of carboxylate groups in a molecules influence the enhancing ability of DAFP-1. Optimum activity in TH is correlated with high concentration of enhancer molecules. Li et al. 1998 investigated the effects of pH and solute on thermal hysteresis in Antifreeze proteins from Dendrioides canadensis. TH activity of DAFP-4 was not affected by pH unless the there was a low solute concentration (pH 1) in which TH decreased. The effect of five solutes; succinate, citrate, malate, malonate, and acetate, on TH activity was reported. Among the five solutes, citrate was shown to have the greatest enhancing effect.
This is an example of a proto-ORF model, a rare occurrence where new genes pre exist as a formed open reading frame before the existence of the regulatory element needed to activate them.
In fishes, horizontal gene transfer is responsible for the presence of Type II AFP proteins in some groups without a recently shared phylogeny. In Herring and smelt, up to 98% of introns for this gene are shared; the method of transfer is assumed to occur during mating via sperm cells exposed to foreign DNA. The direction of transfer is known to be from herring to smelt as herring have 8 times the copies of AFP gene as smelt (1) and the segments of the gene in smelt house transposable elements which are otherwise characteristic of and common in herring but not found in other fishes.
There are two reasons why many types of AFPs are able to carry out the same function despite their diversity:
Although ice is uniformly composed of water molecules, it has many different surfaces exposed for binding. Different types of AFPs may interact with different surfaces.
Although the five types of AFPs differ in their primary structure of amino acids, when each folds into a functioning protein they may share similarities in their three-dimensional or tertiary structure that facilitates the same interactions with ice.
Antifreeze glycoprotein activity has been observed across several ray-finned species including eelpouts, sculpins, and cod species. Fish species that possess the antifreeze glycoprotein express different levels of protein activity. Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) exhibit similar protein activity and properties to the Antarctic species, T. borchgrevinki. Both species have higher protein activity than saffron cod (Eleginus gracilis). Ice antifreeze proteins have been reported in diatom species to help decrease the freezing point of organism's proteins. Bayer-Giraldi et al. 2010 found 30 species from distinct taxa with homologues of ice antifreeze proteins. The diversity is consistent with previous research that has observed the presence of these genes in crustaceans, insects, bacteria, and fungi. Horizontal gene transfer is responsible for the presence of ice antifreeze proteins in two sea diatom species, F. cylindrus and F. curta.
Mechanisms of action
AFPs are thought to inhibit ice growth by an adsorption–inhibition mechanism. They adsorb to nonbasal planes of ice, inhibiting thermodynamically-favored ice growth. The presence of a flat, rigid surface in some AFPs seems to facilitate its interaction with ice via Van der Waals force surface complementarity.
Binding to ice
Normally, ice crystals grown in solution only exhibit the basal (0001) and prism faces (1010), and appear as round and flat discs. However, it appears the presence of AFPs exposes other faces. It now appears the ice surface 2021 is the preferred binding surface, at least for AFP type I. Through studies on type I AFP, ice and AFP were initially thought to interact through hydrogen bonding (Raymond and DeVries, 1977). However, when parts of the protein thought to facilitate this hydrogen bonding were mutated, the hypothesized decrease in antifreeze activity was not observed. Recent data suggest hydrophobic interactions could be the main contributor. It is difficult to discern the exact mechanism of binding because of the complex water-ice interface. Currently, attempts to uncover the precise mechanism are being made through use of molecular modelling programs (molecular dynamics or the Monte Carlo method).
Binding mechanism and antifreeze function
According to the structure and function study on the antifreeze protein from Pseudopleuronectes americanus, the antifreeze mechanism of the type-I AFP molecule was shown to be due to the binding to an ice nucleation structure in a zipper-like fashion through hydrogen bonding of the hydroxyl groups of its four Thr residues to the oxygens along the direction in ice lattice, subsequently stopping or retarding the growth of ice pyramidal planes so as to depress the freeze point.
The above mechanism can be used to elucidate the structure-function relationship of other antifreeze proteins with the following two common features:
recurrence of a Thr residue (or any other polar amino acid residue whose side-chain can form a hydrogen bond with water) in an 11-amino-acid period along the sequence concerned, and
a high percentage of an Ala residue component therein.
History
In the 1950s, Norwegian scientist Scholander set out to explain how Arctic fish can survive in water colder than the freezing point of their blood. His experiments led him to believe there was “antifreeze” in the blood of Arctic fish. Then in the late 1960s, animal biologist Arthur DeVries was able to isolate the antifreeze protein through his investigation of Antarctic fish. These proteins were later called antifreeze glycoproteins (AFGPs) or antifreeze glycopeptides to distinguish them from newly discovered nonglycoprotein biological antifreeze agents (AFPs). DeVries worked with Robert Feeney (1970) to characterize the chemical and physical properties of antifreeze proteins. In 1992, Griffith et al. documented their discovery of AFP in winter rye leaves. Around the same time, Urrutia, Duman and Knight (1992) documented thermal hysteresis protein in angiosperms. The next year, Duman and Olsen noted AFPs had also been discovered in over 23 species of angiosperms, including ones eaten by humans. They reported their presence in fungi and bacteria as well.
Name change
Recent attempts have been made to relabel antifreeze proteins as ice structuring proteins to more accurately represent their function and to dispose of any assumed negative relation between AFPs and automotive antifreeze, ethylene glycol. These two things are completely separate entities, and show loose similarity only in their function.
Commercial and medical applications
Numerous fields would be able to benefit from the protection of tissue damage by freezing. Businesses are currently investigating the use of these proteins in:
Increasing freeze tolerance of crop plants and extending the harvest season in cooler climates
Improving farm fish production in cooler climates
Lengthening shelf life of frozen foods
Improving cryosurgery
Enhancing preservation of tissues for transplant or transfusion in medicine
Therapy for hypothermia
Human Cryopreservation (Cryonics)
Unilever has obtained UK, US, EU, Mexico, China, Philippines, Australia and New Zealand approval to use a genetically modified yeast to produce antifreeze proteins from fish for use in ice cream production. They are labeled "ISP" or ice structuring protein on the label, instead of AFP or antifreeze protein.
Recent news
One recent, successful business endeavor has been the introduction of AFPs into ice cream and yogurt products. This ingredient, labelled ice-structuring protein, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The proteins are isolated from fish and replicated, on a larger scale, in genetically modified yeast.
There is concern from organizations opposed to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) who believe that antifreeze proteins may cause inflammation. Intake of AFPs in diet is likely substantial in most northerly and temperate regions already. Given the known historic consumption of AFPs, it is safe to conclude their functional properties do not impart any toxicologic or allergenic effects in humans.
As well, the transgenic process of ice structuring proteins production is widely used in society. Insulin and rennet are produced using this technology. The process does not impact the product; it merely makes production more efficient and prevents the death of fish that would otherwise be killed to extract the protein.
Currently, Unilever incorporates AFPs into some of its American products, including some Popsicle ice pops and a new line of Breyers Light Double Churned ice cream bars. In ice cream, AFPs allow the production of very creamy, dense, reduced fat ice cream with fewer additives. They control ice crystal growth brought on by thawing on the loading dock or kitchen table, which reduces texture quality.
In November 2009, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published the discovery of a molecule in an Alaskan beetle that behaves like AFPs, but is composed of saccharides and fatty acids.
A 2010 study demonstrated the stability of superheated water ice crystals in an AFP solution, showing that while the proteins can inhibit freezing, they can also inhibit melting.
In 2021, EPFL and Warwick scientists have found an artificial imitation of antifreeze proteins.
References
Further reading
External links
Cold, Hard Fact: Fish Antifreeze Produced in Pancreas
Antifreeze Proteins: Molecule of the Month , by David Goodsell, RCSB Protein Data Bank
Proteins by function
Cryobiology |
423388 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political%20colour | Political colour | Political colours are colours used to represent a political ideology, movement or party, either officially or unofficially. They represent the intersection of colour symbolism and political symbolism. Politicians making public appearances will often identify themselves by wearing rosettes, flowers, ties or ribbons in the colour of their political party. Parties in different countries with similar ideologies sometimes use similar colours. As an example the colour red symbolises left-wing ideologies in many countries (leading to such terms as "Red Army" and "Red Scare"), while the colour blue is often used for conservatism, the colour yellow is most commonly associated with liberalism and right-libertarianism, and Green politics is named after the ideology's political colour. The political associations of a given colour vary from country to country, and there are exceptions to the general trends, for example red has historically been associated with the Christian Church, but over time gained association with leftist politics, while the United States differs from other countries in that conservatism is associated with red and liberalism with blue.
Black
Black is primarily associated with anarchism (see anarchist symbolism); black is a lack of colour, and anarchism is a lack of a state. It is used in contrast of national flags, to instead represent universal anarchism. Black is also used to a lesser extent to represent ideologies on the opposite end of the spectrum: fascism (see blackshirts and Schutzstaffel) and jihadism (see Black Standard).
The colours black and red have been used by anarchists since at least the late 1800s when they were used on cockades by Italian anarchists in the 1874 Bologna insurrection, and in 1877 when anarchists entered the Italian town Letino carrying red and black flags to promote the First International. During the Spanish Civil War the CNT used a diagonally half strip of black and red, with black representing anarchism and red representing the labour movement and the worker movement. The flag was quickly adopted by other anarchists, with the second colour used to distinguish specific anarchist philosophies: anarcho pacifism with white, green anarchism with green, anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-communism with red, mutualism with orange, and anarcho-capitalism with yellow, while black alone typically represents 'anarchism without adjectives'.
During the golden age of piracy, the black flags of pirates such as Blackbeard and Calico Jack became popular symbols of piracy. The flags represented death and no quarter to those who did not surrender. The black flag of the jolly roger, used by Calico Jack, turned into a popular and recognizable symbol of pirates, particularly of pirates of the Americas. The skull and bones also became a hazardous symbol to display poisons such as cyanide, Zyklon B and other toxic substances. The black flag of piracy would later influence the symbols of anarchism, such as the symbols of the Makhnovshchina and the Kronstadt rebellion. The rise of internet piracy led to the symbols of the golden age of piracy becoming widely adopted, becoming the symbols of pirate sites such as the Pirate bay. Black becoming a colour to represent pirate parties.
Black was also used by some anti-racist and Black nationalist parties, such as the Black Panther Party in the United States and the Popular Unity in Brazil.
Anti-clerical parties in the late 19th and early 20th centuries sometimes used the colour black in reference to the officials of the Roman Catholic Church because the cassock is usually black.
In Germany and Austria, black is the colour historically associated with Christian democratic parties, such as the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP); however, this is only customary, as the official colours of the CDU are usually either one of or a mix of different shades of yellow, orange or blue, depending on the regional branch of the party, with the nationwide party also using the red, black and gold from the German flag as official colours. The CSU uses a medium dark shade of blue as their official colour, as seen in their logo. In 2017, the ÖVP changed their official colour from black to turquoise, with some regional branches switching to turquoise as well, while others continue to use black, often in a mix with another color, such as red, yellow, green or blue.
In Italy, black is the colour of fascism because it was the official colour of the National Fascist Party. As a result, modern Italian parties would not use black as their political colour; however, it has been customary to use black to identify the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement.
In the Islamic world, black flags (often with a white shahadah) are sometimes used by jihadist groups. Black was the colour of the Abbasid caliphate. It is also commonly used by Shia Muslims, as it is also associated with mourning the death of Hussein ibn Ali. It is now known as the flag colour of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
In Malaysia, the People's Solidarity Secretariat (SSR), an umbrella youth organization launched the Black Flag Movement (#BenderaHitam) in 2021 as a resistance-based protest against the then ruling Perikatan Nasional government. The Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (MUDA) also adapted the colour black as their official colour.
In Russia, black was used for monarchism and nationalist movements, such as the Black Hundreds before their defeat.
In India, black represents protest. In Tamil Nadu, black represents atheistic human rights rebels who follow Periyar E. V. Ramasamy.
In Brazil, the far-left, socialist and anti-racist party Popular Unity has black as its official color.
Blue
Blue is usually associated with centre-right or conservative parties, originating from its use by the Tories (predecessor of the Conservative Party) in the United Kingdom. Blue is used by many international organisations of centre right and conservative parties, such as the International Democrat Union, the Democrat Union of Africa, the Asia Pacific Democrat Union, the Caribbean Democrat Union (together with red), the European Democrat Union, the European People's Party, the European Conservatives and Reformists Party.
The field of the flag of the United Nations is light blue, chosen to represent peace and hope. It has given rise to the term "bluewashing".
The colour blue, normally of a lighter shade, is of prime significance in Judaism. The flag of Israel features two blue horizontal stripes and a blue Star of David. See also and Zionism.
In Australia the colour blue has been associated with conservatism and the right since pre-federation, taking influence from the United Kingdom. The major centre-right, conservative political party, called the Liberal Party of Australia, uses blue, as did its predecessor party: United Australia.
In Austria, blue is heavily associated with the right-wing populist Freedom Party and with pan-Germanism. It is the Freedom Party's official colour, and its members are generally referred to as "blues" in the media and colloquial speech. The blue cornflower was a national symbol of Germany in the 19th century, often associated with Prussia. It later became a symbol for Pan-German nationalists in Austria, such as Georg Ritter von Schönerer's . In 1930s Austria the cornflower was also worn by members of the then illegal NSDAP, as a secret symbol and identifier. After 1945, MPs of the Freedom Party wore cornflowers on their lapels at the openings of the Austrian parliament, until they switched to the more "Austrian" Edelweiß in 2017.
In Argentina, blue is associated with the syncretic Peronist movement. The left-wing populist Frente de Todos uses sky blue alongside the Justicialist Party, the main party of the front. Federal Peronism, which represents the right-wing of the Peronist movement and the conservative Christian Democratic Party current, uses dark blue.
In Belgium, blue is associated with liberalism, used both by the Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats as the Reformist Movement.
In Brazil, blue is associated with mainstream centre-right, liberal and conservative parties opposed to populism, often associated with the left but also opposed with the populist reactionary right, like National Democratic Union, National Renewal Alliance, Progressive Party, Brazilian Social Democracy Party, Democratas and Brazil Union. The first major party which used blue was the far-right Brazilian Integralist Action, but their successors use Gold.
In Canada, the Conservative Party uses blue. However, in Canada, blue is also often used to represent Quebec, while red represents Canada - with no connection to right/left politics. The Bloc Québécois, a federal party centred around Quebec nationalism, uses blue, as do major provincial parties in Quebec like the Parti Québécois and Coalition Avenir Québec.
In Honduras, blue is used by the conservative National party.
In Hong Kong, blue is used by pro-Beijing camp, but also used by localists (for symbolizing Hong Kong independence).
In India, light blue is the colour associated with the Indian National Congress, a national centre-left party. Meanwhile, dark blue is associated with the Dalit Movement, represented by multiple parties: Republican Party of India (and its Athawale splinter), Bahujan Samaj Party, etc.
In the Republic of Ireland, blue is associated with the centre-right Fine Gael party, going back to the Blueshirts, a quasi-fascist uniformed group that merged into the party in 1932. "Blueshirt" is a common derogatory term for Fine Gael, and they often use blue in party materials.
In Japan, blue is associated with liberal, centrist, and centre-left parties. Three centre-left parties in Japan with elected representatives use blue: the Constitutional Democratic Party, Democratic Party for the People, and the Social Democratic Party. Historically, blue was used by Japan Socialist Party.
In Malaysia, blue was currently used to represent both Barisan Nasional (royal blue) and Perikatan Nasional (solid blue).
In Russia, blue is an official color of the ruling party, United Russia.
In South Africa, blue is usually associated with liberal political parties, the most popular being the Democratic Alliance, the largest opposition party. The colour blue was also used by the United Party, from which the Progressive Party (the most senior ancestor of the Democratic Alliance) split in 1959.
In South Korea, traditionally blue was used by conservative parties. Since 2013, blue has adopted by the liberal Democratic Party of Korea (previously used green and yellow), while conservative party change its colour from blue to red.
In Spain, blue is the colour of the mainstream conservative People's party, but regionally:
Light blue is used by Galician nationalism as it appears in the flag of Galicia.
Dark blue is used by non-separatist Catalan nationalism, being the colour of Convergence and Union, which ruled Catalonia from 1980 to 2003 and from 2010 to 2015, and its successor PDeCAT.
In Taiwan, it is used by the Kuomintang and the wider Pan-Blue Coalition, a coalition generally associated with Chinese nationalism as well as conservatism.
In the United States, the colour blue has been associated with the liberal Democratic Party since around the 2000 presidential election, when most of the major television networks used the same colour scheme for the parties. This makes the United States an exception to the general rule that blue represents conservative parties; the major conservative party in the United States, the Republican Party, uses red. In 2010, the Democratic party unveiled a blue official logo (see red states and blue states).
In Venezuela, blue represents the Democratic Unity Roundtable, the large multi-ideological coalition of parties in opposition, probably as a counterpart to PSUV's red.
In most of Latin America, blue is used as a colour of anti-feminism and, more specifically, anti-abortion. This colour was used as a response to the feminist/pro-abortion green. This originated in Argentina.
Brown
Brown has been associated with Nazism, and in particular the Nazi Party in Germany, because of the Sturmabteilung (SA), whose members were called "brownshirts". They were modeled on Benito Mussolini's blackshirts, and the colour of their shirts was chosen because many brown uniforms intended for the colonial troops in Germany's African colonies were cheaply available after the end of World War I. In Europe and elsewhere, the colour brown is sometimes used to refer to fascists in general.
Brown is sometimes used to describe the opposite of green parties, that is to describe parties that care little about pollution.
Buff
Buff was the colour of the Whig faction in British politics from the early 18th century until the middle of the 19th century. As such, it is sometimes used to represent the current political left (in opposition to blue, which represented the Tories and then the Conservatives and political right).
Grey
Grey is sometimes used by parties that represent the interests of pensioners and senior citizens, such as "The Greys" in Germany.
Grey can also be used to refer to reactionary independence or secessionist movements, due to its association with the Confederate States of America.
Grey is often used to represent independent politicians, however in the UK, white is used to represent independent politicians.
Green
Green is the colour for both environmentalist and Islamist political parties and movements (see green in Islam).
The Esperanto movement makes wide use of green in its symbolism, including the language's flag which is known as the (literally Green Flag)
Fern green is occasionally used by political organizations and groups who advocate the legalization of medicinal use of marijuana.
Sea green was used as a symbol by members of the Levellers in 17th-century Britain and for this reason, it is occasionally used to represent radical liberalism.
Green has sometimes also been linked to agrarian movements, such as the Populist Party, in the U.S. in the 1890s and the current-day Nordic Agrarian parties, as well as the National Party of Australia, a conservative party traditionally representing regional and agricultural interests. The International Agrarian Bureau, though often known as the "Green International", did not formally endorse the colour, although a successor group, called the International Peasant Union, was represented by a clover.
In Australia, a dark shade of green is used to represent right wing National Party of Australia, while a light shade of green is used to represent the Australian Greens.
In Brazil, in addition to its use by the Green Party, green, as the main colour of the Brazilian flag, is strongly associated with Brazilian nationalism and Brazilian people. The big tent, pro-democracy Brazilian Democratic Movement, the conservative Social Christian Party, the far-right nationalist Patriota and the populist, anti-corruption and pro-direct democracy Podemos all use different shades of green. In the past, green was also the colour of the Conservative Party of the Empire of Brazil
In Canada, in addition to its use by the Green Party of Canada, green has also been frequently used by right-wing and populist parties that are unaffiliated with the Conservative Party. Examples include the Social Credit Party of Canada, Reform Party of Canada, Canadian Alliance, Wildrose Party in Alberta and the Saskatchewan Party. Green was also historically used as a secondary colour by the left-wing New Democratic Party, whose primary colour is orange.
In Denmark, a dark shade of green is used by the right-centre Conservative People's Party ().
In Iran, green has been used by the Iranian Green Movement, a political movement that arose after the 2009 Iranian presidential election, in which protesters demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office.
In India, green is used mainly by center-left parties, such as All India Trinamool Congress and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and by Islamic political parties, such as the Indian Union Muslim League.
Irish Nationalist and Irish Republican movements have used the colour green. Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and Aontú all use green as colour.
Green, considered the holy colour of Islam, it is used to represent Islamism such as Hamas, Saudi Arabia and Islamist parties.
In Malaysia, green is used by the Islamists, especially the Malaysian Islamic Party and several Malay nationalists as part of the Malay Tricolour (the other being yellow and red). .
In Italy, Northern secessionist movements such as Lega Nord chose green as their political colour, advocating their Celtic origin.
In Japan, the dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) uses green as one of its official colours. Although the party has used the color red more prominently in recent years. Other examples of right wing parties adopting the colour green in its branding include the Japan Innovation Party and the now defunct Party of Hope.
In Morocco, it is associated with the Green March of 1975.
In Paraguay, two centre-left social democratic parties use green: the Revolutionary Febrerista Party and the Progressive Democratic Party
In most of Latin America, green is associated with pro-choice movements, the colour started being used in Argentina as a symbol of third wave feminism and abortion rights, with a green scarf as a symbol. However, green is also the colour of many christian democratic parties in the region which opposes abortion, like in Aruba, Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela and Panama.
In South Korea, green was used by various liberal parties for much of post-war history. When the Democratic Party of Korea was founded in 2014, it used blue instead.
In Spain, green is used by monarchists, as the initials of ("Hail the King of Spain") spell out the word (Spanish: green). Currently, green is used by monarchist and far-right party Vox. In order to avoid clash of colours, green parties Más Madrid, Más País and Equo use teal. Also, regionwide:
Green is the standard colour of Basque nationalism and separatism; with dark green used by center-right Basque Nationalist Party, and light green used by abertzale left EH Bildu.
Green is the colour of Andalusian nationalism as it appears in the flag of Andalusia, itself based on the flag of the Medieval Caliphate of Córdoba.
In Taiwan, it is used by the Democratic Progressive Party and the wider Pan-Green Coalition, a coalition generally associated with Taiwan independence as well as progressive liberalism.
In the United States, it is used by the Green Party, which promotes green politics, specifically things like environmentalism.
Magenta
Magenta is a colour that tends to replace yellow for liberal and centrist parties and organisations in Europe. It is not to be confused with the socialist or social democratic use of the colour pink.
In Germany although the official colour of the left-wing party Die Linke is red, mass media uses magenta as the party colour to prevent confusion with the centre-left Social Democratic Party whose party colour is also red.
Orange
Orange is the traditional colour of the Christian democratic political ideology and most Christian democratic political parties, which are based on Catholic social teaching and/or neo-Calvinist theology. Christian democratic political parties came to prominence in Europe and the Americas after World War II. Orange less frequently represents various kinds of populist parties. Such is the case in Austria, Germany, France, Portugal, Switzerland, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Turkey.
Since 2004, orange has represented Post-Communist Democratic Revolutions in Eastern Europe such as the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine. This gave the colour orange a certain association with radical anti-authoritarian politics in some countries and it has been used as such by groups and organizations in the Middle East, for example in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Bahrain and Israel.
In Israel, the colour orange has become the dominant colour of the right-wing, with an emphasis on the religious-right. This is when, from 2004, the colour became the leader of a protest against the disengagement plan, and became identified with the right-wing camp.
Orange is often used to represent the mutualist current in anarchist politics, as a middle ground between pro-market currents such as anarcho-capitalism (associated with the colour yellow of liberalism) and anti-capitalist currents such as anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-communism (associated with the colour red of communism and socialism).
Humanism frequently uses orange for representation. It is the colour of the Humanist International, as well as the humanist parties in Argentina, Costa Rica and Chile, and other humanist organizations.
In Australia, orange is used to represent the One Nation party, a right-wing populist and national-conservative led by Pauline Hanson. It is also used to represent other populist parties, such as the Centre Alliance party.
In Brazil, orange is the colour of the liberal New Party and also is the colour of three parties associated with a socially conservative social democracy: Forward, Republican Party of the Social Order and Solidarity
In Canada, Orange is the official colour of the social-democratic New Democratic Party. During Jack Layton's leadership green was used as their accent colour; The logo was a green maple leaf with orange "NDP" lettering. Currently light blue is used as their accent colour although it seldom appears and is not included in the logo (the current logo is an orange maple leaf with orange "NDP" lettering).
In Cyprus, since its adoption by the fans of APOEL FC, orange has been associated with fascist and ultranationalist politics.
The Czech Social Democratic Party uses orange alongside the more traditional red.
In Greece, orange is associated with liberal and centrist parties, like Center Union, Drassi and Recreate Greece
During the English Civil War of 1642, orange was associated with parliamentarian Roundheads.
In Mexico, orange is not linked to Christian democratic movements (the Christian democratic party Partido Acción Nacional uses blue). Instead, it is linked to the center-left secular party Movimiento Ciudadano.
In New Zealand, the Electoral Commission rejected a proposed orange logo for being likely to confuse or mislead voters by being too similar to the colour used by the country's electoral agencies.
In the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland orange is associated with Unionism and the Orange Order.
In South Africa, orange is often associated with conservative Afrikaner political movements. Orange was the official colour of the National Party which was the country's governing party from 1948 to 1994. Additionally, its successor, the New National Party, used the colour orange. It is the used by the Christian democratic and Afrikaner nationalist party Freedom Front Plus. Orange red is the official colour of the Independent Democrats, a social democratic political party in the Northern and Western Cape Provinces.
In Spain, orange is used by Citizens, a liberal party that opposes Catalan separatism. This is in contrast to the yellow used by Catalan separatism (see below).
In Thailand, orange is used by the banned Future Forward Party, and currently used by the Move Forward Party, being associated with social democracy and progressivism.
Pink
Pink is sometimes used by social democratic parties, such as in France and Portugal. The more traditional colour of social democracy is red (because social democracy is descended from the democratic socialist movement), but some countries have large social democratic parties alongside large socialist or communist parties, so that it would be confusing for them all to use red. In such cases, social democrats are usually the ones who give up red in favor of a different colour. Pink is often chosen because it is seen as a softer, less aggressive version of red, in the same way that social democracy is more centrist and capitalistic than socialism.
In some European nations and the United States, pink is associated with homosexuality and the pink flag is used as a symbol in support of civil rights for LGBT people; it is commonly used to represent queer anarchism. This use originates in Nazi German policy of appending pink triangles to the clothing of homosexual prisoners.
The Austrian liberal party NEOS uses pink as its main colour.
Purple
Although purple has some older associations with monarchism, it is the most prominent colour that is not traditionally connected to any major contemporary ideology. As such, it is sometimes used to represent a mix of different ideologies, or new protest movements that are critical of all previously existing large parties and minor parties.
Purple has been the colour of the international Pirate Party movement since the founding of the Swedish Pirate Party in 2006.
Purple is often associated with feminism and when combined with black, is often used to represent anarcha-feminism.
In Albania, purple is the colour of the Socialist Party of Albania.
In Brazil, purple is the colour associated with some progressive liberal movements such as Cidadania and Livres. This colour is chosen because those movements consider themselves to be mixing the best ideas of the left (associated with red) and the right (associated with blue)
In Canada, the People's Party of Canada is a right-libertarian and right-wing populist party whose colour has been purple since its founding and have changed their logo in 2021 to reflect that. The People's Alliance of New Brunswick are another right-wing party that uses purple in Canada. Previously, purple was used by several municipal politicians, such as Naheed Nenshi and Lisa Helps, as a "nonpartisan" or "postpartisan" colour, due to its lack of association with any major party or ideological viewpoints.
In the Dominican Republic, the Dominican Liberation Party logo is a yellow five-pointed star on a purple background. It was originally a leftist party but today the party is seen gravitating towards a more centrist platform.
In Europe, purple tends to be used for movements, parties and governments that are neither clearly right nor left. The colour is also used by the European federalist party Volt.
It has been used to represent the Purple governments of Belgium and the Netherlands, formed by an alliance of red social-democratic and blue liberal parties.
In the Republic of Ireland, purple is the colour of the Social Democrats; in most other countries, social democrats use pink or red, but the use of purple has allowed the party to stand out visually from other left-wing parties (such as Labour, Solidarity, People Before Profit and the Workers' Party, who all use shades of red and pink). Co-leader Catherine Murphy used purple as her personal colour when she was an independent politician, prior to the party's foundation in 2015.
In Italy, purple has been adopted by anti-Silvio Berlusconi protesters (see Purple People) as an alternative from other colours and political parties.
In Peru, the Purple Party is a liberal party which chose purple as its colour to represent centrism, between the blue of the right and red of the left.
In Spain, purple is associated with leftist republicanism and with the Second Spanish Republic. The left-wing to far-left and republican Unidas Podemos coalition uses purple.
In the United Kingdom, purple is most commonly associated with UKIP, a formerly prominent eurosceptic party which has since become extremely minor. Purple is also the official colour of two other British Eurosceptic parties, Veritas and the Christian Peoples Alliance. From these associations, among others, the colour purple has been linked with far-right politics in the UK. However, it is also the colour of the centre-left, pro-European Co-operative Party, a little-known party with an electoral pact with the Labour Party.
Purple is also unofficially used in the United States to denote a "swing state", swing district, or county. (i.e. one contested frequently between the Republican Party, whose unofficial colour is red; and the Democratic Party, whose unofficial colour is blue). Purple is also used by centrists to represent a combination of beliefs belonging to the Republicans and the Democrats. It has also been used to reference Purple America, noting that electoral differences nationwide are observed more on discrepancies instead of unity (see red states and blue states).
In Turkey, the Peoples' Democratic Party is often represented with the colour purple. Considered on the left-wing of the political spectrum and a merger of various socialist and pro-Kurdish movements, the party places a strong emphasis on participatory and radical democracy, feminism, LGBT rights, minority rights, youth rights and egalitarianism.
Red
Red is often associated with the left, especially socialism and communism. The oldest symbol of socialism (and by extension communism) is the red flag, which dates back to the French Revolution in the 18th century and the revolutions of 1848. Before this nascence, the colour red was generally associated with Christianity due to the symbolism and association of Christ's blood. The colour red was chosen to represent the blood of the workers who died in the struggle against capitalism. All major socialist and communist alliances and organisations—including the First, Second, Third and Fourth Internationals—used red as their official colour. The association between the colour red and communism is particularly strong. Communists use red much more often and more extensively than other ideologies use their respective traditional colours.
In Europe and Latin America, red is also associated with parties of social democracy and often their allies within the labour movement, a symbol of common solidarity among leftists.
Red is also the traditional colour of liberal parties in Latin America and was the colour used, for example, in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Uruguay for liberal parties.
In Brazil, red is used by the Workers' Party, supporters of Lula and communist parties. The association of red with Lulism and communism has become so prevalent in recent years that other parties that had red as a primary or secondary color switched colors so as not to be associated with or confused with Lula, PT and the communist parties.
In Canada, red is the colour of the Liberal Party of Canada.
In China, red is the colour used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In Hong Kong, red is used by the pro-Beijing camp.
In Macau, red is used by the pro-Beijing camp.
In Malaysia, red was currently used to represent Pakatan Harapan and also the Socialist Party of Malaysia. Meanwhile, red is also used United Malays National Organization and Malaysian United Indigenous Party as part of the Malay Tricolour (the other being yellow and green).
In Russia, red is used by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. In the Soviet Union, red was the colour used by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In Spain, red is the official colour of both the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the Communist Party of Spain. Because the Socialists are a major party, and in order to avoid a clash of colours, the Communist United Left voluntarily uses dark red as its customary colour.
In Taiwan, it is used by the Taiwan People's Communist Party and the wider united front in Taiwan, associated with Chinese communism and allegiance to the CCP.
In Thailand, red is used by Pheu Thai Party and supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, hence the umbrella term "redshirts".
In the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland, red is also the colour of the labour movement and the Labour (spelled Labor in Australia) parties in those countries. The use of red as a symbol is referenced in the British Labour Party's anthem, The Red Flag.
In the heyday of the British Empire before 1960, maps, globes, and atlases typically used red or pink to designate the Empire or its Commonwealth; the practice inspired the All-Red Route and the All Red Line This derived from the Redcoats traditionally worn by the British Army. As soon as a colony became independent, it needed its own distinctive colour and the practice died out.
A key exception to the convention of red to mean the left-wing of politics is the United States. Since about the year 2000, the mass media have associated red with the Republican Party, even though the Republican Party is a conservative party (see red states and blue states). This use is possibly entrenched, as many political organisations (for example, the website RedState) now use the term.
Since the 2010s, some conservative parties such as the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan and the People Power Party of South Korea have also adopted red as their political colour.
Saffron
Saffron is traditionally associated with Hinduism, Hindutva and the Hindu nationalist movement. Saffron was chosen because in Hinduism, the deep saffron colour is associated with sacrifice, religious abstinence, quest for light and salvation. Saffron or "Bhagwa" is the most sacred colour for the Hindus and is often worn by Sanyasis who have left their home in search of the ultimate truth.
Teal
In Australia, the colour teal, and the term "teal independents", have become associated with some of the centrist independent candidates supported by the Voices groups in Australia and campaigning on a platform emphasizing climate change action, tackling corruption in politics, and gender equality. Six such candidates won seats at the 2022 Australian federal election, ousting incumbent MPs from the Liberal Party of Australia. One theory about the colour teal in this context is that it symbolises a mixture of blue (the Liberal Party's colour) with green (representing environmental concerns).
In Spain, because the colour green is connected to monarchism, environmental parties use teal In order to avoid clash of colours. They include the parties; Más Madrid, Más País and Equo.
In the United Kingdom, teal is used by right-wing populist Reform UK, because it is seen as a version of the conservative blue.
In Canada, teal is used by the French-Canadian nationalist Bloc Québécois.
In Austria, teal is the main colour of the Austrian People's Party. The colour was changed from black to teal as a part of the party's rebranding campaign after the Sebastian Kurz corruption scandal and subsequent drop in the party's popularity.
White
White is today mainly linked to pacifism (as in the surrender flag).
Historically, it was associated with support for absolute monarchy, starting with the supporters of the Bourbon dynasty of France because it was the dynasty's colour. Partly due to this association, white also came to be associated with Jacobitism, itself allied with the Bourbons. White cockades, white ladies' gloves, and Rosa pimpinellifolia (the 'burnet' or 'Stuart' rose) symbolised support for the exiled House of Stuart. Later it was used by the Whites who fought against the communist "Reds" in the Russian Civil War, because some of the Russian "Whites" had similar goals to the French "Whites" of a century earlier (although the Whites included many different people with many ideologies, such as monarchists, liberals, anticommunist social democrats and others).
Because of its use by anti-communist forces in Russia, the colour white came to be associated in the 20th century with many different anti-communist and counter-revolutionary groups, even those that did not support absolute monarchy (for example, the Finnish "Whites" who fought against the socialist "Reds" in the civil war following the independence of Finland). In some revolutions, red is used to represent the revolutionaries and white is used to represent the supporters of the old order, regardless of the ideologies or goals of the two sides.
In Italy, a red cross on a white shield () is the emblem of Catholic parties from the historical Christian Democracy party.
In the politics of the United Kingdom, white represents independent politicians such as Martin Bell.
The Yorkshire Party, a Devolutionist Political Party with elected representatives in Yorkshire, uses a stylised White Rose of York as its emblem.
Yellow
Yellow is the colour most strongly associated with liberalism and right-libertarianism.
In Latin America, it is not unusual for left-wing social democratic parties to use yellow, as red was the traditional colour of liberals, especially in countries with prominent red-using liberal parties like Uruguay, Honduras, Mexico, Colombia and Costa Rica.
Yellow is also associated with Judaism and the Jewish people, although this may be seen negatively (see also Yellow badge) and since 1945 the blue Star of David is preferred.
In East and Southeast Asia, yellow is used to represent monarchies. For instance, in Thailand yellow represents King Bhumibol and King Vajiralongkorn, apart from the colour of the royalists, known as the "yellowshirts". It was also the colour of the pro-monarchy Panchayat system in the Kingdom of Nepal.
It is also a common colour to represent Buddhism; monks in Myanmar used it in the anti-government protests in 2007–2008.
Yellow socialism was a political movement in France from 1902 until World War I, opposed to the "red socialism" of Marxism.
In Australia, yellow is used to represent the United Australia Party established in 2013.
In Brazil, yellow, combined with green, is associated with right-wing populists and national conservatives movements against corruption, anti-Workers Party, anti-communists, supportive of impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and later, with support of Jair Bolsonaro, like PSL and the Alliance for Brazil. The association came because many of the protesters against Dilma wore the jersey of Brazil national football team, which is yellow with the numbers and some details in green, and because the protesters chanted that the Brazilian flag "will never be red" (in reference to the colours of the communism and Workers' Party) and "will always be green and yellow".
In Canada, yellow does not have any dominant political connotation, and so is commonly used by Elections Canada as a politically neutral colour and as a high-visibility colour to mark polling stations.
In Hong Kong, yellow represents the pro-democracy supporters.
In Macau, yellow represents the pro-democracy supporters.
In Malaysia, yellow was formerly used by Bersih (The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections).
In the Philippines, yellow is commonly associated with the center to centre-left Liberal Party although other colours such as red and blue are used.
In South Korea, yellow associated with historically Uri Party and former President Roh Moo-hyun supporters. Since 2015, Justice Party adopted the colour.
In Spain, regionally:
Yellow is the colour used by supporters of the Catalan independence movement. Since 2017, separatists adopted the yellow ribbon as one of their symbols along with the (pro-independence flag).
Yellow is the customary colour of Canarian nationalism, with blue and white, the other colours in the flag of the Canary Islands, also being used.
In the United States, the colour yellow was the official colour of the suffrage movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 21st century, the Libertarian Party's official branding colours are gold-yellow, grey, and black. The gold-yellow colour is prominent because of the historical association with classical liberalism and in reference to a gold-backed currency and free markets.
In the United Kingdom, the colour yellow is predominantly used by the Scottish National Party. The use of political yellow dates back to David Lloyd George's publication of "Britain's Industrial Future" in the early to mid-1920s. Yellow denotes freedom, advancement, and novelty, with special importance on the freedom representing the desire of Independence for the SNP.
By country
Notable national political colour schemes include:
In Northern Ireland, the Unionist parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly are called the "orange block" and the Nationalist parties are the "green block".
Some of the established political parties use or have used different colour variations in certain localities. This was common in British politics up to the 1970s. The traditional colour of the Penrith and the Border Conservatives was yellow, rather than dark blue, even in the 2010 election Conservative candidates in Penrith and the neighbouring constituency of Westmorland and Lonsdale wore blue and yellow rosettes. In North East England, the Conservatives traditionally used red, Labour green and the Liberals blue and orange. In parts of East Anglia, the Conservatives used pink and blue, whilst in Norwich their colours were orange and purple. The Liberals and Conservatives used blue and red respectively in West Wales, while in parts of Cheshire the Liberals were red and Labour yellow. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Tories used orange in Birmingham, pink in Whitby and red in East Worcestershire, whilst the Whigs were blue in Kendal, purple in Marlborough and orange in Wakefield. The traditional colour of the Warwickshire Liberals was green, rather than orange.
In the United States the two major political parties use the national colours, i.e. red, white and blue. Historically, the only common situation in which it has been necessary to assign a single colour to a party has been in the production of political maps in graphical displays of election results. In such cases, there had been no consistent association of particular parties with particular colours. Between the early 1970s and 1992, most television networks used blue to denote states carried by the Democratic Party and red to denote states carried by the Republican Party in presidential elections. A unified colour scheme (blue for Democrats, red for Republicans) began to be implemented with the 1996 presidential election; in the weeks following the 2000 election, there arose the terminology of red states and blue states. Political observers latched on to this association, which resulted from the use of red for Republican victories and blue for Democratic victories on the display map of a television network. As of November 2012, maps for presidential elections produced by the U.S. government also use blue for Democrats and red for Republicans. In September 2010, the Democratic Party officially adopted an all-blue logo. Around the same time, the official Republican website began using a red logo.
This association has potential to confuse foreign observers in that, as described above, red is traditionally a left-wing colour (as used with the Democratic Socialists of America), while blue is typically associated with right-wing politics. This is further complicated by the diversity of factions in the Democratic Party ranging from conservatives to right-libertarians to democratic socialists alongside the dominant centrist and social liberal elements of the party that outside the United States often each use different political colours.
The conservative Blue Dog Coalition within the Democratic Party adopted the colour blue at its founding, before the 2000 election solidified the red-blue convention.
There is some historical use of blue for Democrats and red for Republicans: in the late 19th century and early 20th century, Texas county election boards used colour-coding to help Spanish speakers and illiterates identify the parties, but this system was not applied consistently in Texas and was not picked up on a national level. For instance in 1888, Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison used maps that coded blue for the Republicans, the colour Harrison perceived to represent the Union and "Lincoln's Party" and red for the Democrats.
In Puerto Rico, the main conservative party, the New Progressive Party, uses blue, while the Popular Democratic Party uses red and the Puerto Rican Independence Party uses green.
See also
Political uniform
List of political ideologies
List of political party symbols
NATO Military Symbols for Land Based Systems#Affiliation
References
Political terminology
Colour
Color in culture |
423413 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highways%20in%20Poland | Highways in Poland | Controlled-access highways in Poland are part of the national roads network and they are divided into motorways and expressways. Both types of highways feature grade-separated interchanges with all other roads, emergency lanes, feeder lanes, wildlife crossings and dedicated roadside rest areas. Motorways differ from expressways in their technical parameters like designated speed, permitted road curvature, lane widths or minimal distances between interchanges. Moreover, expressways might have single-carriageway sections in case of low traffic densities (as of 2023, such sections constitute 3.5% of the highway network).
The development of modern highways began in the 1970s, but proceeded very slowly under the communist rule and for the first years afterwards – between 1970 and 2000 only the total of 434 km of highways were constructed (5% of the planned network). Further 1050 km (13% of the network) were opened from 2001 to 2010, followed by 2773 km (34% of the network) constructed between 2011 and 2020. It is planned to open about 3000 km (about 37%) in the 2020s, while the last 10% would be completed after 2030.
, there are 5115,6 km of motorways and expressways in operation (62% of the intended network), while contracts for construction of further 1030 km (13% of the network) are ongoing.
Except for the single-carriageway expressways, both types of highways fulfill the definition of a motorway as characterized by OECD, WRA or Vienna Convention. Speed limits in Poland are 140 km/h on motorways and 120 km/h on expressways (100 km/h in case of single-carriageway expressway sections). Some motorway stretches are tolled.
Technical parameters
Motorways are public roads with controlled access which are designated for motor vehicles only, and feature two carriageways with at least two continuous lanes each, divided by a median. They have no one-level intersections with any roads or other forms of land and water transport and have wildlife crossings constructed above the road. They feature emergency lanes and feeder lanes, and are equipped with dedicated roadside rest areas. Motorways are the only roads in Poland which use blue background on road signs - others use green road signs.
Expressways share most of the characteristics of motorways, differing mainly in that:
Expressways are designated for lower speed than motorways. For example, the road curvature can be higher and the lanes are usually narrower (3.5m vs 3.75m). Emergency lanes can also be narrower (2.5m vs 3m) and in exceptional situations expressways might not have them at all.
Expressways can have a single carriageway on sections with low traffic density.
Motorways can have interchanges only with main roads and the distance between interchanges is typically not less than 15 km (or 5 km near major cities), while expressways typically have more frequent interchanges. In exceptional situations, expressways might not have dedicated feeder lanes on interchanges.
Formally, expressways are also allowed to admit a one-level junction with a minor public road in exceptional cases, however in 2020 the last such remaining junction in Poland was reconstructed into a two-level interchange.
Speed limits
List of motorways and expressways
In 2004, the government published a document defining the planned highway network of length about . Notable changes introduced in later amendments include re-routing S8 and adding S61 instead (a change related to the Rospuda Valley conflict), introducing S16, S52 and A/S50, as well as extending S5, S8 and S10.
The planned network consists of 16 major highways (over 200 km of intended length): A1, S3, S5, S7, S11, S17, S19, S61 running north to south and A2/S2, A4, S6/A6, S8/A8, S10, S12, S16, S74 running west to east, as well as 9 shorter highways:
As of 2023, the operational sections of highways utilize the following cross-sections:
7% (354 km) – motorways and expressways with 2x3 or (occasionally) 2x4 or 2x5 lanes,
89.5% (4589 km) – motorways and expressways with 2x2 lanes,
3.5% (178 km) – single-carriageway expressways, of which: 109 km with 1+1 lanes, 53 km with 1+1 lanes and dual-carriageway fragments (2x2) around the interchanges, 16 km with interchanging 2+1 lanes.
All single-carriageway expressways are constructed with allocated space for a possible upgrade to dual-carriageway and all bridges above such highways are prepared to accommodate the second carriageway. Most of those sections are planned to be widened to full profile by 2033, the exceptions being S1 (near the Slovak border) and S22 (near the border with Kaliningrad Oblast) where widening is currently not expected.
Tolls
Since 4 September 2023, almost all highways are free for vehicles up to 3.5 tons of permissible maximum weight (for a passenger car with a trailer, the joint permissible maximum weight of the car and the trailer must not exceed 3.5 tons). On some sections, the old infrastructure for toll collection is still in place.
The privately-owned sections of A2 and A4 are tolled. In the closed system, there are toll stations on every interchange both entering and exiting the tolled section; the driver receives a ticket upon entering the motorway and pays on the exit, with the price dependent on the distance driven. In the open system, two toll stations are located at the ends of the section; a person driving the whole distance pays at both gates, while a person entering or leaving the motorway mid-section pays only at one gate. The following sections are tolled:
A2 Rzepin – Poznań-West (managed by AWSA): 133 km, 48 PLN ($), closed system. (The bypass of Poznań is free. In particular, it means a person driving through S5 or S11 does not need to pay for using the common section of A2.)
A2 Poznań-East – Sługocin (managed by AWSA): 85 km, 60 PLN ($), open system.
A4 Mysłowice – Kraków-Balice (managed by Stalexport): 52 km, 26 PLN ($), open system; it is possible to pay automatically using electronic toll collection by the Autopay mobile app, which allows one to save much time by choosing the "fast gates" for e-toll, instead of waiting in the queue to the regular gates that support both manual and electronic toll collection. (The bypass of Kraków is free. In particular, it means a person driving through S7 does not need to pay for using the common section of A4.)
Vehicles over 3.5 tons and buses
Using e-Toll is obligatory for buses as well as all vehicles with maximum permissible weight exceeding 3.5 tons (including the trailer) while driving on the Polish roads (not just the highways). More details can be found on the e-Toll website.
Traffic volumes
Traffic volumes in Poland note rapid increase since the fall of communism in 1989: the annual average daily traffic recorded in 2020 amounts to over 360% of the average traffic recorded in 1990. With the increasing traffic, the length of overburdened single-carriageway national roads had also been steadily increasing until reaching the maximum of 1389 km in 2010. Due to the large number of highway sections opened between 2010 and 2020, in that decade the length of overburdened roads has fallen down for the first time in history, from 1389 km in 2010 to 1121 km in 2020.
The latest general measurement was conducted in 2020, although some measurement days were moved to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic which would have caused the results from 2020 to be unreliable. The following highways recorded the highest volumes:
The other highest and lowest recorded AADT values were:
Substandard highways
Motorways and expressways constructed before 1999 do not have to fulfill technical parameters listed in the ordinance. As of 2023, one notable case of a substandard highway remains:
A4 on the section Krzyżowa – Wrocław () was constructed in years 1934 – 1937 (then the territory of Nazi Germany) and renovated in years 2002 – 2006. The road received new high quality surface but the geometry was kept unchanged and many overpasses above the motorway were kept. In effect, this part has no emergency lanes and the speed limit is decreased to 110 km/h. Its full reconstruction (and widening to three lanes per direction) is scheduled for years 2026 – 2030.
Notable historical cases are:
S3 near Szczecin (19 km) was opened in 1979 and it featured two at-grade road intersections, as the last such expressway section in Poland, until the reconstruction in years 2019 – 2020.
A6 near Szczecin (29 km) was constructed by Nazi Germany and kept using the original surface made of concrete slabs until the reconstruction conducted in years 1996 – 1999 and (easternmost fragment) 2017 – 2021.
A18 (70 km) had its southern carriageway constructed by Nazi Germany. The northern carriageway was constructed in 2004 – 2006, while southern carriageway kept using the original concrete slabs until the reconstruction conducted in years 2020 – 2023.
History
Before World War II
The first plans of creation of a national highway network in Poland were conceived in the interwar period: Plans
The main promoter of this concept was Professor Melchior Wladyslaw Nestorowicz of the Warsaw University of Technology, who organized three Road Congresses, during which a group of specialists discussed the creation of the network. On March 5, 1939, in the trade magazine Drogowiec, Professor Nestorowicz proposed a very ambitious plan for the construction of almost 5,000 kilometres of category I and II roads, based on similar programmes in Germany and Italy. Nestorowicz sketched a map of the future system with the following routes:
First class roads would, according to the plans, consist of the following motorways (totalling some :
Warsaw - Łódź - 100 km
Warsaw – Poznań - Polish-German border - 350 km
Warsaw beltway - 130 km
Poznań beltway - 80 km
Gdynia – Bydgoszcz – Łódź – 500 km
Łódź beltway - 90 km
Bytow - Free City of Danzig border - 50 km
Katowice – Kraków – Lwów - 375 km
Warsaw – Lublin - Lwów – Sniatyn - Polish-Romanian border - 550 km
Puławy – Sandomierz – Przemyśl - 175 km
Second class roads would consist of the following motorways, totalling another :
Piotrków Trybunalski - Kielce - Sandomierz - 180 km
Warsaw – Kielce – Kraków - 180 km
Łódź - Kalisz - Polish-German border north of Wrocław - 130 km
Warsaw – Grodno – Vilnius – Polish - Lithuania - Latvian border near Daugavpils - 575 km
Grodno - Nowogrodek - Polish-Soviet border near Minsk - 190 km
Bydgoszcz – Poznań – Częstochowa - 350 km
Katowice – Cieszyn – Polish-Czechoslovak border - 60 km
Ostrołęka - Polish-East Prussian border - 50 km
Grodno - Polish-Lithuanian border - 40 km
Grodno - Brzesc nad Bugiem - Krasnystaw - 300 km
Warsaw – Brzesc nad Bugiem - 170 km
In 1934, Nazi Germany started the construction of their motorway system, parts of which today form A18 and A4 to Wrocław (Breslau), as well as A6 Szczecin bypass and S22 (parts of the planned motorway to Königsberg). About half of them were constructed as single-carriageway with the intention of adding a second carriageway in later years. However, after 1938, warfare expenses meant little money would be invested into any infrastructure and only one 9 km single-carriageway piece west of Gliwice (now A4) was constructed.
In Poland, a 28 km stretch between Warlubie and Osiek (now DW214) was constructed in 1937 – 1939 in the motorway standard of the time (today not considered a highway) with a concrete surface, which was designed by Italian engineer Piero Puricelli. The motorway was planned to reach Gdynia, but the outbreak of the Second World War halted the plans.
1945 – 1972
The Potsdam conference defined the borders for communist Poland, which were very different from the pre-1939 ones. It received the so-called Regained Territories from the former Third Reich with the aforementioned motorway sections (some of them with first carriageway only). Most of the motorway bridges were destroyed by the warfare, but only a few were repaired or rebuilt in the first post-war years. The bridge over Ina river was reconstructed in 1972, and those on S22 only between 1996 and 2003.
Apart from the bridges, almost all the motorways were left in the same condition as they were in 1945 until the mid-1990s. The only road left from Nazi times that was completed by the People's Republic of Poland was a one-carriageway small section between Łęczyca and Lisowo (15 km of what is now DW142), which was built on the previous works of Nazis.
Plans
At the post-war year there were very ambitious plans to make a motorway network for the whole Poland. For example, engineer Eugeniusz Buszma has published his propositions to the network in the magazine "Drogowiec" (1946, issue 1):
East – West (Słubice – Warsaw – Białystok) – 680 km
North – South (Gdynia – Warsaw – Balkans) – 650 km
Silesia – Baltic I (Gdańsk – Łódź – Katowice) – 460 km
Pomeranian (Gdańsk – Szczecin) – 280 km
Silesian (Wrocław – Katowice – Kraków) – 190 km
Mazurian (Kaliningrad – Elbląg – Malbork) – 20 km
Silesia – Baltic II (Bydgoszcz – Wrocław) – 260 km
Łódź – Wrocław – (Prague) – 310 km
Katowice – (Vienna) – 60 km
Poznań – Szczecin – 200 km
Radom – Lublin – (Lviv) – 220 km
In total, the mileage, according to the proposal, would total more than .
After the addition of the sections built by the Third Reich the total network length had to be approx. 3700 km. In 1963 the Motorization Council at the Council of Ministers had presented the similar plan plus the motorways: Warsaw-Kraków-Zakopane, Kraków-Przemyśl, Warsaw-Bydgoszcz-Koszalin, Poznań-Koszalin i Warsaw-Terespol (approx. 1250 km). None of those plans were realized, however.
Despite announcing such pompous plans, no motorway was opened in the meantime.
In the 1970s
Only in the 1970s did any works start. In 1972 it was planned to build:
Plans
the Gliwice-Kraków motorway (now A4)
the second carriageway of the Wrocław-Gliwice motorway (also A4)
the Warsaw-Katowice motorway (so-called "Gierkówka", now the S8/A1 road), in the near future
The plans were expanded in 1976 by the following sections:
Tarnów – Kraków (now A4),
eastern GOP (Górnośląski Okręg Przemysłowy) bypass (now S1, northern part),
Bielsko-Biała – Cieszyn (now S52, southern part),
Warszawa – Poznań (so-called Olimpijka, now A2),
Łódź – Piotrków Trybunalski (now A1).
In 1973 – 1976, "Gierkówka" dual carriageway from Warsaw to Katowice () was built. Originally planned as a motorway, it was in the end constructed by adding another carriageway to the existing road, hence going through many villages and crossing with local roads. The part from Piotrków Trybunalski to Częstochowa (78 km) was constructed on a new route in a motorway alignment, but nonetheless the majority of the crossings between the highway and the other roads were constructed as one-level intersections with no viaducts or overpasses.
In the 1980s
Near the end of the 1970s the first construction of motorways started and continued to the next decade. The roads opened in the 1980s were the first motorways and expressways which generally meet the contemporary standards (at least with respect to their more important attributes), although in multiple cases the poor quality of their construction forced major renovations to be performed as soon as within the first 20 years of operation.
The major routes planned as motorways were A1, A2 and A4, while other main routes were planned as expressways. The implementation of these plans, however, came at a very slow pace: throughout the 1980s, only an average of of highways in the whole country were being opened per year.
In the 1990s
In the III Republic of Poland, planned S3 was promoted to motorway A3 (the decision was later reversed) and a plan was introduced (also later reversed) of constructing motorway A8 Łódź – Wrocław – Bolków (now S8/A8/S5). Szczecin bypass (A6) and section Olszyna – Krzywa (then named A12, now A4/A18) were promoted to motorways, even though at that time the majority of their lengths was in bad shape, laid with the original concrete surface from the 1930s with no significant works having been performed on any of them throughout the whole communist period.
In the 2000s
As of the beginning of 2000, the vast majority of national and international traffic routes were served by regular national roads with at-grade intersections and pedestrian crossings, most of them leading through the centres of cities, towns and villages, and most of them single carriageway. Only the following number of highways was present:
about of modern dual carriageway motorways and expressways (3.5% of the network as planned nowadays),
about of single carriageway expressways,
about of not-resurfaced Nazi German motorways from the 1930s,
about of not-resurfaced Nazi German motorways on sections where only the first carriageway had been constructed.
Before Poland received the EU membership
At the beginning of the 21st century, the tempo of highway construction started to increase. The main focus was on the west-east motorways A4 and A2. In 2002, a long-awaited renovation of the A4 from Krzywa to Wrocław (93 km) has started, which included laying new high quality surface in place of the Nazi German concrete slabs, reconstruction of all the pre-WWII bridges on the motorway and renovation of the viaducts above the motorway.
This is also the period when Poland started introducing motorway tolls, first in 2000 for the A4 section between Mysłowice and Kraków.
Poland in European Union
1 May 2004 was a crucial day for the history of motorway construction, and that is when the highway boom started. One of major the advantages of signing the European Union access document was that Poland could get access to large funds for co-financing the construction of new roads and upgrades of the existing road infrastructure.
These years, the existing scattered pieces of highways began to converge into the basis of the future network:
until 2004, Katowice and Kraków (linked by A4) were the only pair of Poland's largest cities connected by a highway;
in 2005, A4 connected Wrocław with Katowice and Kraków, while in 2009 – with Germany;
in 2006, A2 connected Poznań with Łódź.
A large number of expressway bypasses of towns were also constructed at this time. On many of them, only one carriageway was built, with the allocated space prepared for easy construction of the second carriageway later.
2011 – 2015
The sections opened in 2011 – 2015 belonged to the following highways:
: + (A1 on the section Gdańsk – Łódź was completed in 2014)
: + (A2 on the section Germany – Warsaw was completed in 2012)
: + (S3 on the section Szczecin – A2 – Zielona Góra was completed in 2013, except that its older single-carriageway parts remained so until 2017)
: +
: +
: + (S8 on the section Wrocław – Łódź was completed in 2014)
: + in total
2016 – 2020
After the peak of investments before Euro 2012, very few new contracts for road construction have been signed in 2012 and 2013, which resulted in a small number of sections getting opened in 2015 and 2016 (large share of which were the last delayed fragments originally scheduled for a Euro 2012 opening). In particular:
In 2016, the last delayed fragment of between Kraków and Ukraine was opened, making A4 the first major Polish highway completed on its whole length, as well as the first complete border-to-border highway connection.
Also in 2016, the delayed bypass of Łódź was finished, making completed on its whole route except for those sections where national road 1 had already been a dual carriageway (see In the 1970s), allowing for a significantly lower priority of constructing the remaining stretch compared to other highways.
Since 2014, the number of signed contracts has risen again, resulting in the number of road openings having risen again since 2017.
The sections opened in 2016 – 2020 belonged to the following highways:
: +
: + (S5 on the section Poznań – Wrocław was completed in 2019)
: + (S6 on the section Szczecin – Koszalin was completed in 2019)
: +
: + (S8 was completed in 2019 on its originally intended route from Wrocław to Białystok; an extension to Kłodzko was later added to the plans)
: + (S17 on the section Warsaw – Lublin was completed in 2020)
: + in total (A4 was completed in 2016)
2021 – present
The sections opened, or planned to get opened, in 2021 – 2025 belong to the following highways:
: +
: + (S3 is scheduled to get completed in 2024)
: + (S6/A6 is scheduled to get completed in 2025 on its original route from Germany to Gdańsk; western bypass of Szczecin will be constructed later as an alternative parallel route)
: + (S7 on the section Warsaw – Kraków is scheduled to get completed in 2024)
: + (S19 "Via Carpathia" on the section Lublin – Rzeszów was completed in 2022, except that its older fragment with 2+1 lanes will remain so until 2026)
: + (S61 "Via Baltica" is scheduled to get completed in 2025)
, , , , : + approx. 60 – 80 km each (A1 was completed in 2022; S5 on the section Grudziądz (A1) – Poznań was completed in 2022; reconstruction of the second carriageway of A18 was completed in 2023; S1 is scheduled to get completed in 2025)
: + in total
Total length of motorways and expressways in Poland (end of the year)
See also
Classes and categories of public roads in Poland
List of controlled-access highway systems
Evolution of motorway construction in European nations
Notes
References
External links
General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways (in Polish, some information also in English)
Roads in Poland
Poland, Roads
Roads
Lists of buildings and structures in Poland |
423459 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-cent%20piece%20%28United%20States%29 | Two-cent piece (United States) | The two-cent piece was produced by the Mint of the United States for circulation from 1864 to 1872 and for collectors in 1873. Designed by James B. Longacre, there were decreasing mintages each year, as other minor coins such as the nickel proved more popular. It was abolished by the Mint Act of 1873.
The economic turmoil of the American Civil War caused government-issued coins, even the non-silver Indian Head cent, to vanish from circulation, hoarded by the public. One means of filling this gap was private token issues, often made of bronze. The cent at that time was struck of a copper-nickel alloy, the same diameter as the later Lincoln cent, but somewhat thicker. The piece was difficult for the Philadelphia Mint to strike, and Mint officials, as well as the annual Assay Commission, recommended the coin's replacement. Despite opposition from those wishing to keep the metal nickel in the coinage, led by Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1864, authorizing bronze cents and two-cent pieces.
Although initially popular in the absence of other federal coinage, the two-cent piece's place in circulation was usurped by other base-metal coins which Congress subsequently authorized, the three-cent piece and the nickel. It was abolished in 1873; large quantities were redeemed by the government and melted. Nevertheless, two-cent pieces remain relatively inexpensive by the standards of 19th-century American coinage.
Inception
A two-cent piece had been proposed in 1806 by Connecticut Senator Uriah Tracy, along with a twenty-cent piece or "double dime". Reflecting the then-prevalent view that coins should contain their value in metal, Tracy's bill provided that the two-cent piece be made of billon, or debased silver. The bill was opposed by Mint Director Robert Patterson, as it would be difficult to refine the silver from melted-down pieces. Although Tracy's legislation passed the Senate twice, in 1806 and 1807, it failed in the House of Representatives. Patterson sent a brass button with two of the billon planchets that would have been used for the coin to Tracy, showing how hard it would be to prevent counterfeiting. The Mint considered a two-cent piece in 1836, and experiments were conducted by Second Engraver Christian Gobrecht and Melter and Refiner Franklin Peale. The piece was to be again of billon, and provision for the coin was included in early drafts of the Mint Act of 1837, but the proposal was dropped when Peale was able to show that the coin could be easily counterfeited.
Until 1857, the cent coin was a large copper piece, containing about its face value in metal. These coins were unpopular, and in 1857, after receiving congressional approval, the Mint began issuing the Flying Eagle cent, of the diameter of the later Lincoln cent, but somewhat thicker and made of copper-nickel alloy. These pieces readily circulated, and although the design did not strike well and was replaced by the Indian Head cent in 1859, the coins were commonly used until all federal coinage vanished from circulation in much of the United States in 1861 and 1862, during the economic turmoil of the American Civil War. This happened because many Northerners feared that if the war went poorly, paper money and government bonds might become worthless. The gap was filled by, among other things, private token issues, sometimes in copper-nickel approximating the size of the cent, but often thinner pieces in bronze.
This fact did not escape government officials, and when, in 1863, they attempted to restore coins to circulation, the use of bronze coins, which would not contain their face values in metal, was considered. In his annual report submitted October 1, 1863, Mint Director James Pollock noted that "whilst people expect a full value in their gold and silver coins, they merely want the inferior [base metal] money for convenience in making exact payments". He observed that the private cent tokens had sometimes contained as little as a fifth of a cent in metal, yet had still circulated. He proposed that the copper-nickel cent be replaced with a bronze piece of the same size. Pollock also wanted to eliminate nickel as a coinage metal; its hard alloys destroyed dies and machinery. On December 8, Pollock wrote to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, proposing a bronze cent and two-cent piece, and enclosing pattern coins of the two-cent piece that he had had prepared. According to numismatist Neil Carothers, a two-cent piece was most likely proposed in order to get as much dollar value in small change into circulation in as short a time as possible, as the Mint could strike a two-cent piece as easily as a cent.
Legislation
On March 2, 1864, Pollock wrote urgently to Chase, warning him that the Mint was running out of nickel and that demand for cents was at an all-time high. He also informed the Secretary that the United States Assay Commission, composed of citizens and officials who had met the previous month to test the nation's silver and gold coinage, had recommended the use of French bronze (95% copper with the remainder tin and zinc) as a coinage metal for the cent and a new two-cent piece. Three days later, Chase sent Pollock's December letter and draft legislation for bronze one- and two-cent pieces to Maine Senator William P. Fessenden, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Fessenden took no immediate action, and on March 16, Pollock wrote again to Chase, warning that the Mint was going to run out of nickel, much of which was imported. Chase forwarded his letter to Fessenden. Legislation was finally introduced by New Hampshire Senator Daniel Clark on March 22; Pollock's letters were read and apparently influenced proceedings as the Senate passed the bill without debate.
The domestic supply of nickel was at that time produced by a mine at Gap, Pennsylvania, owned by industrialist Joseph Wharton. On March 19, Pollock wrote to Chase that they had no more nickel, nor was any available from overseas; "we are thus shut up to the home supply; from the works of Mr. Wharton". Opposed to the removal of nickel from the cent, Wharton published a pamphlet in April 1864 proposing coinage of one-, two-, three-, five-, and ten-cent pieces of an alloy of one part nickel to three of copper, doubling the percentage of nickel used in the cent. Despite Wharton's efforts, on April 20, a select committee of the House of Representatives endorsed the bill. It was opposed by Pennsylvania's Thaddeus Stevens, who represented the mining area from which Wharton extracted his nickel. Wharton had spent $200,000 to develop his mine and ore refinement machinery, Stevens related, and it was unfair to deprive him of the major use of his metal. "Shall we destroy all this property because by coining with another metal more money may be saved to the government?" Besides, he argued, the copper-nickel alloy for the cent had been approved by Congress, and the new metal, which he termed "brass", would show rust. He was rebutted by Iowa Congressman John A. Kasson, chairman of the House Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, who stated that the bronze alloy did not resemble brass, and he could not support the proposition that the government is bound to purchase from a supplier because he has spent money in anticipation of sales.
The legislation passed the House, and the Coinage Act of 1864 was signed by President Abraham Lincoln on April 22, 1864. The legislation made base metal coins legal tender for the first time: both cents and two-cent pieces were acceptable in quantities of up to ten. The government would not, however, redeem them in bulk. The act also outlawed the private one- and two-cent tokens, and later that year Congress abolished all such issues. The legislation did not allow for the redemption of the old copper-nickel cents; it had been drafted by Pollock, who was hoping that the seignorage income from issuing the new coins would help finance Mint operations, and he did not want it reduced by the recall of the old pieces. Wharton and his interests were appeased by the passage of a bill for a three-cent piece in 1865 and a five-cent piece in 1866, both of his proposed alloy, out of which the "nickel", as the latter coin has come to be known, is still struck.
Design
In late 1861, the Reverend Mark R. Watkinson of Ridleyville, Pennsylvania, had written to Chase, proposing that some reference to God be placed on the coinage in that time of war, and on November 20 of that year, Chase wrote to Mint Director Pollock, "No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins. You will cause a device to be prepared without unnecessary delay with a motto expressing in the fewest tersest terms possible this national recognition." Several mottoes were considered by Pollock, including "God Our Trust" and "God and Our Country". Some of the patterns he sent Chase in December 1863 used "God Our Trust", and he wrote of the design, "the devices are beautiful and appropriate, and the motto on each such, as all who fear God and love their country, will approve." He also sent pattern coins depicting George Washington; Chase responded to the letter, "I approve your mottoes, only suggesting that on that with the Washington obverse the motto should begin with the word OUR, so as to read OUR GOD AND OUR COUNTRY. And on that with the shield, it should be changed so as to read: IN GOD WE TRUST." Pollock had been inspired by "The Star-Spangled Banner", a later stanza of which includes the line, "And this be our motto, 'In God Is Our Trust' ". Chase may have been influenced in his decision by the motto of his alma mater, Brown University, In Deo Speramus (In God We Hope).
As the mottoes to be placed on coinage were prescribed by the 1837 act, a legislative change was needed. The act which created the two-cent piece authorized the Mint Director, with the Secretary of the Treasury's approval, to prescribe the designs and mottoes to be used. Longacre's two-cent piece was the first coin inscribed with "In God We Trust". The motto was popularized by the new coin; on March 3, 1865, Congress passed legislation ordering its use on all coins large enough to permit it. Since 1938, "In God We Trust" has been used on all American coins.
The obverse design is a Longacre version of the Great Seal of the United States. His design focuses on the shield, or escutcheon, as a defensive weapon, signifying strength and self-protection through unity. The upper part of the shield, or "chief", symbolizes Congress, while the 13 vertical stripes, or "paleways", represent the thirteen original states. Consequently, the entire escutcheon symbolizes the strength of the federal government through the unity of the states. The crossed arrows represent nonaggression, but imply readiness against attack. The laurel branches, taken from Greek tradition, symbolize victory. In heraldic engraving, vertical lines represent red, clear areas white and horizontal lines blue, thus the escutcheon is colored red, white and blue and is meant to evoke the American flag. The reverse contains the denomination "2 CENTS" within a somewhat ornate wheat wreath. The rest of the coin is filled with the name of the country.
Art historian Cornelius Vermeule deemed the two-cent piece "the most Gothic and the most expressive of the Civil War" of all American coins. "The shield, arrows, and wreath of the obverse need only flanking cannon to be the consummate expression of Civil War heraldry." Vermeule suggested that the coin appears calligraphic, rather than sculptural, and ascribed this to Longacre's early career as a plate engraver.
Production and collecting
A few thousand of the first circulation strikes, as well as a handful of proof coins, came from a prototype die with smaller letters in the motto than all other 1864 pieces. Although specimens of the two-cent piece, being of base metal, were not set aside for testing by the annual Assay Commission, Congress did order that internal checks be done at the Mint as to their composition and weight.
The two-cent piece was at first a success, circulating freely once enough of them were issued to be recognized by the public. It initially circulated because of the wartime coin shortage, which was alleviated by the new cent and two-cent piece. Although Pollock reported hoarding of cents in his June 1864 report, he did not thereafter mention such activities. Silver coins still did not circulate in much of the nation, and the new coins (joined by the three- and five-cent pieces of copper-nickel, first struck in 1865 and 1866 respectively) answered the need for small change. In October 1864, he reported that the demand for both coins had been unprecedented and that every effort was being made to increase production; in his report the next June, he called the two-cent piece "a most convenient and popular coin". The Act of March 3, 1865, that provided for the three-cent nickel piece, reduced the legal tender limit of the bronze coins to four cents, while making the newly authorized coin acceptable up to sixty cents.
After the large mintage of just under twenty million in the first year, according to numismatist Q. David Bowers, "enthusiasm and public acceptance waned". After the war, bank demand for the denomination dropped, while demand for the new five-cent nickel increased; mintages of the two-cent piece were smaller every year. Lange notes, "it was evident by the end of the 1860s that its coinage was no longer necessary". According to Carothers, "the coinage of a 2 cent piece was unnecessary. While it was popular at first because of the great public demand for metallic small change, it was a superfluous denomination, and its circulation waned rapidly after the 5 cent nickel coin was introduced."
Beginning in 1867, the new Mint Director, Henry Linderman, (Pollock had resigned) began to advocate for Congress to authorize redemption of surplus copper and bronze coinage. Although the nickel could be redeemed in lots (permission granted in its authorizing act), there was no provision for the government to buy back the smaller coins, and with more being issued every year, there were too many small-value coins. Treasury officials insisted the government could not accept the pieces beyond their legal tender limits, even if what was being done was exchanging them for other currency. Under Linderman, the Mint, without any legal authority, purchased in bronze coins using three-cent pieces and nickels. Still, millions of two-cent pieces accumulated in the hands of newspaper and transit companies, postmasters, and others who took small payments from the public, and there were complaints to Congress. With the advent of the Grant administration, Pollock returned to office and opposed the redemption proposals. Although he included Pollock's opinions as part of his annual report, Treasury Secretary George S. Boutwell asked Congress to pass a redemption act, and it did so on March 3, 1871, allowing for the redemption of minor coinage in lots of not less than . It also allowed the Treasury Secretary to discontinue the coinage of any piece redeemed in large numbers. Pursuant to the new law, the Mint in 1871 and 1872 redeemed over 37,000,000 small coins, including two-cent pieces.
In the postwar years, Congress and the Treasury considered a revision of the coinage laws, as the act of 1837 was deemed outdated. Retention of the two-cent piece was never seriously considered in the debates over what became the Mint Act of 1873; the only question concerning the minor coinage was whether to make the cent from bronze or copper-nickel, and how large to make the three-cent nickel. With those pieces remaining unchanged, the bill passed on February 12, 1873, putting an end to the two-cent piece series.
With the two-cent piece likely to be abolished, only 65,000 were struck for circulation in 1872; it is unclear why they were struck at all. On January 18, 1873, Philadelphia Mint Chief Coiner Archibald Loudon Snowden complained that the "3" in the date, as struck by the Mint, too closely resembled an "8", especially on the smaller-sized denominations. In response, Pollock ordered the new chief engraver, William Barber (Longacre had died in 1869), to re-engrave the date, opening the arms of the "3" wider on most denominations. The two-cent piece was struck only in proof condition in 1873, and due to its February abolition, there should not have been time or reason for Barber to re-engrave the coin. Nevertheless, it exists in "Closed 3" and "Open 3" varieties. Breen suggested that the "Open 3" variety was actually struck at a later date, probably clandestinely; it was not known to exist until discovered by a numismatist in the 1950s. Numismatist Paul Green ascribed the two varieties to the two types of proof sets that the Mint sold at the time that would have contained the two-cent piece. The "nickel set" contained only the low-value coins without precious metal, while another contained also the silver coins; he suggested that one variety was struck for each.
Large quantities of two-cent pieces were withdrawn in the 1870s and after. Approximately 17,000,000 of the some 45,600,000 two-cent pieces issued had been repurchased by the Treasury as of 1909. Withdrawn pieces were melted and recoined into one-cent pieces. A bill for a two-cent piece bearing the portrait of recently deceased former president Theodore Roosevelt passed the Senate in 1920 and was strongly recommended by a House committee but never enacted. Numismatist S. W. Freeman noted in 1954 that few alive could remember using a two-cent piece, but for those who did, it was often associated with spending it at a candy store. He recalled that two cents would buy a quantity of sweets, as a dime did in Freeman's day, and, he feared, it would take a quarter to do in the future. Full legal tender status was confirmed for the two-cent piece by the Coinage Act of 1965, long after the coin had passed from circulation, as it made all coins and currency of the United States good for all public and private debts without limit. Nevertheless, numismatist Jack White pointed out in a 1971 column that due to its short lifespan, the piece "hardly got its two cents in".
R.S. Yeoman's 2018 edition of A Guide Book of United States Coins lists the 1864 large motto and the 1865 as the least expensive two-cent pieces, in good (G-4) condition at , though every issue by year through 1871 lists for or less in that condition. The reason for the relatively flat prices, even in top grades, is a lack of collectors who seek the entire series (it is most popularly collected with a single specimen as part of a "type set" of the various issues of American coins). Despite the high mintage, it is the 1864 date that has one of the more highly valued varieties, the "small motto". Yeoman lists the 1864 small motto in Proof condition, at and in Very Fine (VF-20) it is .
Mintage figures
All two-cent pieces were minted at the Philadelphia Mint, and bear no mint mark. Proof mintages are estimated.
See also
Three-cent piece
Penny, the one-cent piece
Half-cent piece
Notes and references
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Other sources
External links
US Two-Cent Piece by year and type. Histories, photos, and more.
Two-Cent pictures
1864 introductions
Coins of the United States dollar
Two-cent coins
1864 establishments in the United States |
423470 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oirats | Oirats | Oirats (, Oirad, ) or Oirds (, Oird; ; ), also formerly Eluts and Eleuths (, Èlǔtè), are the westernmost group of the Mongols whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of Siberia, Xinjiang and western Mongolia.
Historically, the Oirats were composed of four major tribes: Dzungar (Choros or Olots), Torghut, Dörbet and Khoshut. The minor tribes include: Khoid, Bayads, Myangad, Zakhchin, Baatud.
The modern Kalmyks of Kalmykia on the Caspian Sea in southeastern Europe are Oirats.
Etymology
The name derives from Mongolic oi < *hoi ("forest, woods") and ard < *harad ("people"), and they were counted among the "forest people" in the 13th century. Similar to that is the Turkic ağaç eri ("woodman") that is found as a tribal name such as Akatziri, an ancient tribe among European Huns, and as a place name in many locales, including the corrupted name of the town of Aghajari in Iran. A second opinion believes the name derives from Mongolian word oirt (or oirkhon) meaning "close (as in distance)," as in "close/nearer ones."
The name Oirat may derive from a corruption of the group's original name Dörben Öörd, meaning "The Allied Four". Perhaps inspired by the designation Dörben Öörd, other Mongols at times used the term "Döchin Mongols" for themselves ("Döchin" meaning forty), but there was rarely as great a degree of unity among larger numbers of tribes as among the Oirats.
These views are challenged by Kempf 2010, who from a historical linguist's point of view argues that the name is a plural coming from *oyiran, and eventually from Turkic *ōy 'a word for a colour of a horse's coat' (oy + gir suffix for colours + (A)n collective suffix).
Writing system
In the 17th century, Zaya Pandita, a Gelug monk of the Khoshut tribe, devised a new writing system called Clear Script for use by Oirats. This system was developed on the basis of the older Mongolian script, but had a more developed system of diacritics to preclude misreading and reflected some lexical and grammatical differences of the Oirat language from Mongolian.
The Clear Script remained in use in Kalmykia until the mid-1920s when it was replaced by a Latin alphabet, and later the Cyrillic script. It can be seen in some public signs in the Kalmyk capital, Elista, and is superficially taught in schools. In Mongolia it was likewise replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet in 1941. Some Oirats in China still use the Clear Script as their primary writing system, as well as Mongolian script.
A monument of Zaya Pandita was unveiled on the 400th anniversary of Zaya Pandita's birth, and on 350th anniversary of his creation of the Clear Script.
History
The Oirats share some history, geography, culture and language with the Eastern Mongols, and were at various times united under the same leader as a larger Mongol entity, whether that ruler was of Oirat descent or of Chingissids.
Comprising the Khoshut (Mongolian: "хошууд", hošuud), Choros or Ölöt ("өөлд", Ööld), Torghut ("торгууд", Torguud), and Dörbet ("дөрвөд", Dörvöd) ethnic groups, they were dubbed Kalmyk or Kalmak, which means "remnant" or "to remain", by their western Turkic neighbours. Various sources also list the Bargut, Buzava, Keraites, and Naiman tribes as comprising part of the Dörben Öörd; some tribes may have joined the original four only in later years. This name may however reflect the Kalmyks' remaining Buddhist rather than converting to Islam; or the Kalmyks' remaining in the Altay region when the Turkic tribes migrated further west.
After the fall of the Yuan dynasty, Oirat and Eastern Mongols had developed separate identities to the point where Oirats called themselves "Four Oirats" while they used the term "Mongols" for those under the Khagans in the east.
Early history
One of the earliest mentions of the Oirat people, in a historical text, can be found in the Secret History of the Mongols, a 13th century chronicle of Genghis Khan's rise to power. In “The Secret History”, the Oirats are counted among the "forest people", and are said to live under the rule of a shaman-chief known as bäki. They lived in Tuva and the Mongolian Khövsgöl Province; the Oirats moved south in the 14th century.
In one famous passage, the Oirat chief Qutuqa Beki used a yada, or 'thunder stone', to unleash a powerful storm on Genghis' army. The magical ploy backfired, however, when an unexpected wind blew the storm back towards him. During the early stages of Genghis' rise to power, the Oirats under Bäki fought against Genghis but were defeated. The Oirats would then fully submit to Mongol rule after their ally, Jamukha, Genghis' childhood friend and later rival, was killed.
Subject to the Khan, the Oirats turned themselves into a loyal and formidable faction of the Mongol war machine. In 1207, Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis, subjugated the forest tribes, including the Oirats and the Yenisei Kyrgyz; the Great Khan gave those peoples to his son, Jochi, and had one of his daughters, Checheygen, marry chief Bäki (or his son). There were notable Oirats in the Mongol Empire, such as Arghun Agha and his son, Nowruz.
In 1256, a group of the Oirats under Bukha-Temür (Mongolian: Буха-Төмөр, Бөхтөмөр) joined Hulagu's expedition against the Abbasids and participated in the Mongol campaign against the Nizaris in Iran. The Ilkhan Hulagu and his successor, Abagha, resettled them in Turkey. Then, they took part in the Second Battle of Homs, where the Mongols were defeated. The majority of the Oirats, who were left behind, supported Ariq Böke against Kublai in the Toluid Civil War. Kublai defeated his younger brother, and they entered the service of the victor.
In 1295, more than 10,000 Oirats under Targhai Khurgen, son-in-law of the Borjigin family, fled Syria, then under the Mamluks, as they were despised by both Muslim Mongols and local Turks. They were well-received by Egypt’s Sultan, Al-Adil Kitbugha, himself of Oirat origin. Ali Pasha, the governor of Baghdad and head of an Oirat ruling family, went on to murder Ilkhan Arpa Keun, resulting in the disintegration of Mongol Persia. Since the Oirats were near both the Chagatai Khanate and the Golden Horde, they had strong ties with them, and many Mongol khans had Oirat wives.
After the expulsion of the Yuan dynasty from China, the Oirats reconvened as a loose alliance of the four major western Mongolian tribes (Mongolian: дөрвөн ойрд, дөрвөн ойрaд). The alliance grew, taking power in the remote region of the Altai Mountains, northwest of Hami oasis. Gradually, they spread eastwards, annexing territories then under the control of the Eastern Mongols. They hoped to reestablish a unified, nomadic rule under their banner of the Four Oirats (the Keraites, Naiman, Barghud, and old Oirats).
The only Borjigid ruling tribe was the Khoshuts; the others' rulers were not descendants of Genghis. The Ming dynasty of China had helped the Oirats' rise over the Mongols during the Yongle Emperor's reign after 1410, when the Ming defeated the Qubilaid Öljei Temür and the Borjigid power was weakened. The Borjigid Khans were displaced from power by the Oirats (with Ming help), ruling as puppet-khans until the alliance between the Ming and Oirats ended, and the Yongle Emperor launched a campaign against them.
The greatest ruler of the Oirat Confederacy was Esen Taishi; he led the Oirats from 1438 to 1454, a time in which he unified Mongolia (both Inner and Outer) under his puppet-khan Taisun Khan. In 1449, Esen Tayisi and Taisun Khan mobilised their cavalry along the Chinese border and invaded Ming China, defeating and destroying the Ming defences at the Great Wall, along with the reinforcements sent to intercept his cavalry. In the process, the Zhengtong Emperor was captured at Tumu. The following year, Esen returned the emperor after an unsuccessful ransom attempt. After claiming the title of Khan (something which only blood descendants of Genghis Khan could do), Esen was killed; shortly afterwards, Oirat power declined.
From the 14th until the middle of the 18th century, the Oirats were often at war with the Eastern Mongols, but reunited with them during the rule of Dayan Khan and Tümen Zasagt Khan.
The Khoshut Khanate
The Oirats converted to Tibetan Buddhism around 1615, and it was not long before they participated in the conflict between the Gelug and Karma Kagyu schools. At the request of the Gelug school, in 1637, Güshi Khan, the leader of the Khoshuts in Koko Nor, defeated Choghtu Khong Tayiji, the Khalkha prince who supported the Karma Kagyu school, and conquered Amdo (present-day Qinghai). The unification of Tibet followed in the early 1640s, with Güshi Khan proclaimed Khan of Tibet by the 5th Dalai Lama and the establishment of the Khoshut Khanate. The title "Dalai Lama" itself was bestowed upon the third lama of the Gelug tulku lineage by Altan Khan (not to be confused with the Altan Khans of the Khalkha), and means, in Mongolian, "Ocean of Wisdom".
Amdo, meanwhile, became home to the Khoshuts. In 1717, the Dzungars invaded Tibet and killed Lha-bzang Khan (or Khoshut Khan), a grandson of Güshi Khan and the fourth Khan of Tibet, and conquered the Khoshut Khanate.
The Qing Empire defeated the Dzungars in the 1750s and proclaimed rule over the Oirats through a Manchu-Mongol alliance (a series of systematic arranged marriages between princes and princesses of Manchu with those of Khalkha Mongols and Oirat Mongols, which was set up as a royal policy carried out over 300 years), as well as over Khoshut-controlled Tibet.
In 1723 Lobzang Danjin, another descendant of Güshi Khan, took control of Amdo and tried to assume rule over the Khoshut Khanate. He fought against a Manchu-Qing Dynasty army, and was defeated only in the following year and 80,000 people from his tribe were executed by Manchu army due to his "rebellion attempt". By that period, the Upper Mongolian population reached 200,000 and were mainly under the rule of Khalkha Mongol princes who were in a marital alliance with Manchu royal and noble families. Thus, Amdo fell under Manchu domination.
The Dzungar Khanate
The 17th century saw the rise of another Oirat empire in the east, known as the Khanate of Dzungaria, which stretched from the Great Wall of China to present-day eastern Kazakhstan, and from present-day northern Kyrgyzstan to southern Siberia. It was the last empire of nomads, and was ruled by Choros noblemen.
The Transition from Ming to Qing dynasties in China occurred in the mid-17th century, and the Qing sought to protect its northern border by continuing the divide-and-rule policy their Ming predecessors had successfully instituted against the Mongols. The Manchu consolidated their rule over the Eastern Mongols of Manchuria. They then persuaded the Eastern Mongols of Inner Mongolia to submit themselves as vassals. Finally, the Eastern Mongols of Outer Mongolia sought the protection of the Manchu against the Dzungars.
In the 17th century, the Dzungar pioneered the local manifestation of the ‘Military Revolution’ in central Eurasia after perfecting a process of manufacturing indigenously created gunpowder weapons. They also created a mixed agro-pastoral economy, as well as complementary mining and manufacturing industries on their lands. Additionally, the Zunghar managed to enact an empire-wide system of laws and policies to boost the use of the Oirat language in the region.
Some scholars estimate that about 80% of the Dzungar population was wiped out by a combination of warfare and disease during the Manchu-Qing conquest of Dzungaria in 1755–1757. The Zunghar population reached 600,000 in 1755.
Most of the Choros, Olot, Khoid, Baatud, and Zakhchin Oirats who battled against the Qing were killed by Manchu soldiers and, after the fall of the Dzungar Khanate, became small ethnic groups.
Kalmyks
Kho Orlok, tayishi of the Torghuts, and Dalai Tayishi of Dorbets, led their people (200,000–250,000 people, mainly Torghuts) west to the (Volga River) in 1607 where they established the Kalmyk Khanate. By some accounts this move was precipitated by internal divisions or by the Khoshut tribe; other historians believe it more likely that the migrating clans were seeking pastureland for their herds, scarce in the central Asian highlands. Some of the Khoshut and Ölöt tribes joined the migration almost a century later. The Kalmyk migration had reached as far as the steppes of southeastern Europe by 1630. At the time, that area was inhabited by the Nogai Horde. But under pressure from Kalmyk warriors, the Nogais fled to Crimea and the Kuban River. Many other nomadic peoples in the Eurasian steppes subsequently became vassals of the Kalmyk Khanate, part of which is in the area of present-day Kalmykia.
The Kalmyks became allies of Russia and a treaty to protect southern Russian borders was signed between the Kalmyk Khanate and Russia. Later they became nominal, then full subjects of the Russian Tsar. In 1724 the Kalmyks came under control of Russia. By the early 18th century, there were approximately 300,000–350,000 Kalmyks and 15,000,000 Russians. Russia gradually reduced the autonomy of the Kalmyk Khanate. Policies encouraged establishment of Russian and German settlements on pastures where the Kalmyks formerly roamed and fed their livestock. The Russian Orthodox church, by contrast, pressed Buddhist Kalmyks to adopt Orthodoxy. In January 1771 the oppression of czarist administration forced a larger part of Kalmyks (33,000 households or approximately 170,000 individuals) to migrate to Dzungaria.
200,000 (170,000) Kalmyks began the migration from their pastures on the left bank of the Volga River to Dzungaria, through the territories of their Bashkir and Kazakh enemies. The last Kalmyk khan Ubashi led the migration to restore the Dzungar Khanate and Mongolian independence. As C. D. Barkman notes, "It is quite clear that the Torghuts had not intended to surrender to the Chinese, but had hoped to lead an independent existence in Dzungaria". Ubashi Khan sent his 30,000 cavalry to the Russo-Turkish War in 1768–1769 to gain weapons before the migration. The Empress Catherine the Great ordered the Russian army, Bashkirs and Kazakhs to exterminate all migrants and Catherine the Great abolished the Kalmyk Khanate.
The Kazakhs attacked them near Balkhash Lake. About 100,000–150,000 Kalmyks who settled on the west bank of the Volga River could not cross the river because the river did not freeze in the winter of 1771 and Catherine the Great executed their influential nobles. After seven months of travel, only one third (66,073) of the original group reached Dzungaria (Balkhash Lake, western border of the Manchu Qing Empire). The Qing Empire resettled the Kalmyks in five different areas to prevent their revolt and several Kalmyk leaders were soon killed by the Manchus. Following the Russian revolution their settlement was accelerated, Buddhism stamped out and herds collectivised.
Kalmykian nationalists and Pan-Mongolists attempted to migrate from Kalmykia to Mongolia in the 1920s when a serious famine gripped Kalmykia. On January 22, 1922, Mongolia proposed to accept the immigration of the Kalmyks but the Russian government refused. Some 71–72,000 (around half of the population) Kalmyks died during the famine. The Kalmyks revolted against Russia in 1926, 1930 and 1942–1943. In March 1927, Soviets deported 20,000 Kalmyks to Siberia, and Karelia. The Kalmyks founded the sovereign Republic of Oirat-Kalmyk on March 22, 1930. The Oirat state had a small army and 200 Kalmyk soldiers defeated a force of 1,700 Soviet soldiers in Durvud province of Kalmykia, but the Oirat state was destroyed by the Soviet Army in 1930. The Mongolian government suggested to accept the Mongols of the Soviet Union, including Kalmyks, but the Soviets rejected the proposal.
In 1943, the entire population of 120,000 Kalmyks were deported to Siberia by Stalin, accused of supporting invading Axis armies attacking Stalingrad (Volgograd); a fifth of the population is thought to have perished during and immediately after the deportation. Around half (97–98,000) of the Kalmyk people deported to Siberia died before being allowed to return home in 1957. The government of the Soviet Union forbade teaching the Kalmyk language during the deportation. Mongolian leader Khorloogiin Choibalsan attempted to arrange migration of the deportees to Mongolia and he met them in Siberia during his visit to Russia. Under the Law of the Russian Federation of April 26, 1991 "On Rehabilitation of Exiled Peoples" repressions against Kalmyks and other peoples were qualified as an act of genocide, although many Russian historians treat this and similar deportations as an attempt to prevent local Russian populations and the Soviet army from lynching the entire ethnic group, many of whom supported Germany. Today Kalmyks are trying to revive their language and religion, but the shift towards the Russian language continues.
According to the Russian 2010 Census there were 176,800 Kalmyks, of whom only 80,546 could speak the Kalmyk language, a serious decline from the level of the 2002 Census, in which the number of speakers was 153,602 (with a total number of 173,996 people). The Soviet 1989 Census showed 156,386 Kalmyk-speakers with a total number of 173,821 Kalmyks.
Xinjiang Mongols
The Mongols of Xinjiang form a minority, principally in the northern part of the region, numbering 194,500 in 2010, about 50,000 of which are Dongxiangs. They are primarily descendants of the surviving Torghuts and Khoshuts who returned from Kalmykia, and of the Chakhar stationed there as garrison soldiers in the 18th century. The emperor had sent messages asking the Kalmyks to return, and erected a smaller copy of the Potala in Jehol (Chengde), (the country residence of the Manchu Emperors) to mark their arrival. A model copy of that "Little Potala" was made in China for the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin, and was erected at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. It is now in storage in Sweden, where there are plans to re-erect it. Some of the returnees did not come that far and still live, now as Muslims, at the southwestern end of Lake Issyk-kul in present-day Kyrgyzstan.
In addition to exiling Han criminals to Xinjiang to be slaves of the Banner garrisons there, the Qing also practiced reverse exile, exiling Inner Asian (Mongol, Russian and Muslim criminals from Mongolia and Inner Asia) to China proper where they would serve as slaves in Han Banner garrisons in Guangzhou. Russian, Oirats and Muslims (Oros. Ulet. Hoise jergi weilengge niyalma) such as Yakov and Dmitri were exiled to the Han banner garrison in Guangzhou. In the 1780s after the Muslim rebellion in Gansu started by Zhang Wenqing (張文慶) was defeated, Muslims like Ma Jinlu (馬進祿) were exiled to the Han Banner garrison in Guangzhou to become slaves to Han Banner officers. The Qing code regulating Mongols in Mongolia sentenced Mongol criminals to exile and slavery under Han bannermen in Han Banner garrisons in China proper.
Ethnic violence with Kazakhs
A Kazakh chief was skinned with his skin to be used as a religious implement and his heart was cut out of his chest by the Oirat Mongol Ja Lama. Another Kazakh was also skinned. A White Guard soldier's heart was eaten by the Mongol Choijon Lama. Mongol banner bloods were sprinkeled with Russian White Guard and Chinese blood from hearts according to A. V. Burdukov. The Kazakh chief who was skinned alive was named Khaisan. His skin along with another man's skin were found by Cossacks under Captain Bulatov in his ger in Muunjaviin Ulaan on 8 February 1914. Owen Lattimore used the words "a strange, romantic and sometimes savage figure" for the Mongol Sandagdorjiyn Magsarjav (1877-1927). Magsarjav had served under Ungern-Sternberg. In Uriankhai Kazakh bandits who were captured had their hearts cut out and sacrificed by Magsarjav.
Hui Tungan, Tibetan and Oirat Mongol claims against Kazakhs
The Kazakhs were plundering and robbing on the Tibetan-Kokonor plateau in Qinghai as they came through Gansu and northern Xinjiang. There were over 7,000 of them between 1938-1941. On the Kokonor plateau, Hui (Tungans), Tibetans and Kazakhs continued to battle each other despite the Kazakh nomads being settled in demarcated pasturelands under Ma Bufang's watch in 1941.
Oirat Mongol Buddhists in Qinghai were slaughtered and looted by Kazakhs (Moslem Khyber Khasaks) who invaded Tibet via the Nan Shan mountains in Xinjiang. The Salar and Hui Muslims of Qinghai told Office of Strategic Services agent Leonard Francis Clark that the Kazakhs slaughtered 8,000 Mongols.
The advance of the Communists under Li Bao (Lin Pao) forced the Hui general Ma Dei-bio to leave Qinghai to confront him, therefore some Kazakh bands were still going around stealing and murdering people. The Mongols were slaughtered by the Kazakhs since the Nationalist government of China disarmed the Mongols.
The Tibetan Rong-pa taught agriculture to former nomad Mongols who began using camels to plough their land in Tsaidam. Hui Muslim governor Ma Bufang appointed Hui Muslim colonel Ma Dei-bio as southern Qinghai's Amban. Me Dei-bio slaughtered Ngoloks by throwing them into the Yellow river after wrapping them in leather. 480 Ngolok families were killed in this manner.
As communists triumphed in China's northern and western periphery, Kazakhs stole Mongol horses from Clark's expedition and the Hui Muslim leader was told by a Tibetan scout that the Kazakhs did it.
Well armed Kazakhs over a period of eight years before Clark's expedition had slaughtered and devastated the Oirat Mongols in the Tsaidam Basin of Xinjiang, the thousand Kazakh families (Hussack) came to the Tsaidam via the Nan shan in Xinjiang and then came back to where they came from after eight years of war against the Mongols. Clark noted they dwelled in gers and they spoke Turki and were "fanatic Mohammedans, professional killers". Mongol Hoshun (banner) were divided into Sumon (arrow) and one arrow lost one thousand horses in a single night to the Kazakhs. Northern Qinghai (Amdo) still had twenty-six fragmented Mongol banners after the Kazakh slaughters of Mongols. These banner divisions were created by the Qing dynasty who scattered the Mongols on the western borders.
Some Tibetans in Qinghai claimed descent from the Tanguts of Khara Khoto in Western Xia and claimed that their ancestors fled to Qinghai after a Chinese army expelled them from Khara Khoto. The Oirat Mongol Prince Dorje told Leonard Francis Clark and the Tibetans and the Hui and Salar Muslims Abdul and Solomon Ma on how the Manchus committed the Dzungar genocide against his Oirat people and how they conquered Xinjiang from the Oirat Mongol Torgut West banner and destroying the south wing of the Mongols.
They took control of the four Khanates of the Khalkha in Outer Mongolia and the 5th Khanate (the Oirat Torgut horde). He also spoke about those Torgut Oirats who had earlier migrated to Kalmykia in Russia and then fought against the Ottoman Turkish Muslim empire, and then crushed the Swedish king Charles XII, and then how 400,0000 Torguts migrated back to Dzungaria in 1771, fighting against the Cossack armies of Tsarina of Russia Catherine the Great. They lost 300,000 children, women and men to the Cossacks as they returned to Xinjiang.
He mentioned how this had made Russia "lose" the support of Mongols. 50,000 Oirats survived after 300,000 Oirat Mongols were slaughtered by Russian Cossacks on Catherine's orders. Prince Dorje then proclaimed that the Oirat Torghut banners were ready for revenge against the "Slavic masses", by fighting against the Soviet Russian red army and asked Clark for America to help the western Mongols against the Slavic Russians. Clark said that the Pentagon and White House would decide and that he could do nothing about it since he was busy with inciting Muslims in Qinghai to jihad against communists and on the Amne Machin mountain to find radioactive material.
Alasha Mongols
The region bordering Gansu and west of the Irgay River is called Alxa or Alaša, Alshaa and Mongols who moved there are called Alasha Mongols.
Törbaih Güshi Khan's fourth son, Ayush, was opposed to the Khan's brother Baibagas. Ayush's eldest son is Batur Erkh Jonon Khoroli. After the battle between Galdan Boshigt Khan and Ochirtu Sechen Khan, Batur Erkh Jonon Khoroli moved to Tsaidam with his 10,000 households. The fifth Dalai Lama wanted land for them from the Qing government, thus in 1686, the Emperor permitted them to reside in Alasha.
In 1697, Alasha Mongols were administered in 'khoshuu' and 'sum' units. A khoshuu with eight sums was created, Batur Erkh Jonon Khoroli was appointed Beil (prince), and Alasha was thus a 'zasag-khoshuu'. Alasha was however like an 'aimag' and never administered under a 'chuulgan'.
In 1707, when Batur Erkh Jonon Khoroli died, his son Abuu succeeded him. He was in Beijing from his youth, served as bodyguard of the Emperor, and a princess (of the Emperor) was given to him, thus making him a 'Khoshoi Tavnan', i.e. Emperor's groom. In 1793, Abuu became Jün Wang. There are several thousand Muslim Alasha Mongols.
Ejine Mongols
Mongols who lived along the Ejin River (Ruo Shui) descended from Rabjur, a grandson of Torghut Ayuka Khan from the Volga River.
In 1698, Rabjur, with his mother, younger sister and 500 people, went to Tibet to pray. While they were returning via Beijing in 1704, the Qing ruler, the Kangxi Emperor, let them stay there for some years and later organized a 'khoshuu' for them in a place called Sertei, and made Rabjur the governor.
In 1716, the Kangxi Emperor sent him and his people to Hami, near the border of Qing China and the Zunghar Khanate, for intelligence-gathering purposes against the Oirats. When Rabjur died, his eldest son, Denzen, succeeded him. He was afraid of the Zunghar and wanted the Qing government to allow them to move away from the border. They were settled in Dalan Uul–Altan. When Denzen died in 1740, his son Lubsan Darjaa succeeded him and became Beil.
In 1753, they were settled on the banks of the Ejin River and the Ejin River Torghut 'khoshuu' was thus formed.
Culture
Origins and genetics
Haplogroup C2*-Star Cluster which was thought to be carried by likely male-line descendants of Genghis Khan and Niruns (original Mongols and descendants of Alan Gua) appears in only 1.6% of Oirats.
The Y-chromosome in 426 individuals mainly from three major tribes of the Kalmyks (the Torghut, Dörbet and Khoshut):
C-M48: 38.7
C-M407: 10.8
N1c: 10.1
R2: 7.7
O2: 6.8
C2 (not M407, not M48): 6.6
O1b: 5.2
R1: 4.9
Others: 9.2
Haplogroup C2*-Star Cluster appeared in only 2% (3% of Dörbet and 2.7% of the Torghut).
Tribes
Sart Kalmyks and Xinjiang Oirats are not Volga Kalmyks or Kalmyks, and the Kalmyks are a subgroup of the Oirats.
Altai Uriankhai
Baatud
Bayads
Chantuu
Choros
Dorbet
Khoshut
Khoid
Khotons
Kalmyks
Myangad
Olots
Sart Kalmyks
Torghut
Zakhchin
See also
Demographics of Mongolia
Four Oirats
Kalmyk people
Dzungar
Kalmykia
Altay people
Al-Adil Kitbugha (Oirat Sultan of Egypt)
References
Further reading
Kempf, Béla: 'Ethnonyms and etymology - The case of Oyrat and beyond'. In: Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher. 24: 2010-11, pp. 189-203
Khoyt S.K. Last data by localisation and number of oyirad (oirat) (htm republication) - in Russian
Wang Jinglan, Shao Xingzhou, Cui Jing et al. Anthropological survey on the Mongolian Tuerhute tribe in He shuo county, Xinjiang Uigur autonomous region // Acta anthropologica sinica. Vol. XII, № 2. May 1993. p. 137-146.
Санчиров В. П. О Происхождении этнонима торгут и народа, носившего это название // Монголо-бурятские этнонимы: cб. ст. — Улан-Удэ: БНЦ СО РАН, 1996. C. 31—50. - in Russian
Ovtchinnikova O., Druzina E., Galushkin S., Spitsyn V., Ovtchinnikov I. An Azian-specific 9-bp deletion in region V of mitochondrial DNA is found in Europe // Medizinische Genetic. 9 Tahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Humangenetik, 1997, p. 85.
Galushkin S.K., Spitsyn V.A., Crawford M.H. Genetic Structure of Mongolic-speaking Kalmyks // Human Biology, December 2001, v.73, no. 6, pp. 823–834.
Хойт С.К. Генетическая структура европейских ойратских групп по локусам ABO, RH, HP, TF, GC, ACP1, PGM1, ESD, GLO1, SOD-A // Проблемы этнической истории и культуры тюрко-монгольских народов. Сборник научных трудов. Вып. I. Элиста: КИГИ РАН, 2009. с. 146-183. - in Russian
hamagmongol.narod.ru/library/khoyt_2008_r.htm Хойт С.К. Антропологические характеристики калмыков по данным исследователей XVIII-XIX вв. // Вестник Прикаспия: археология, история, этнография. № 1. Элиста: Изд-во КГУ, 2008. с. 220-243.
Хойт С.К. Кереиты в этногенезе народов Евразии: историография проблемы. Элиста: Изд-во КГУ, 2008. – 82 с. (Khoyt S.K. Kereits in enthnogenesis of peoples of Eurasia: historiography of the problem. Elista: Kalmyk State University Press, 2008. – 82 p. (in Russian))
hamagmongol.narod.ru/library/khoyt_2012_r.htm Хойт С.К. Калмыки в работах антропологов первой половины XX вв. // Вестник Прикаспия: археология, история, этнография. № 3, 2012. с. 215-245.
Boris Malyarchuk, Miroslava Derenko, Galina Denisova, Sanj Khoyt, Marcin Wozniak, Tomasz Grzybowski and Ilya Zakharov Y-chromosome diversity in the Kalmyks at the ethnical and tribal levels // Journal of Human Genetics (2013), 1–8.
Хойт С.К. Этническая история ойратских групп. Элиста, 2015. 199 с. (Khoyt S.K. Ethnic history of oyirad groups. Elista, 2015. 199 p. in russian)
Joo-Yup Lee Were the historical Oirats “Western Mongols”? An examination of their uniqueness in relation to the Mongols // Études mongoles & sibériennes, centrasiatiques & tibétaines (47/2016)
Хойт С.К. Данные фольклора для изучения путей этногенеза ойратских групп // Международная научная конференция «Сетевое востоковедение: образование, наука, культура», 7-10 декабря 2017 г.: материалы. Элиста: Изд-во Калм. ун-та, 2017. с. 286-289. (in russian)
Ли Чжиюань. О происхождении хойдского народа // Международная научная конференция «Сетевое востоковедение: образование, наука, культура», 7-10 декабря 2017 г.: материалы. Элиста: Изд-во Калм. ун-та, 2017. с. 436-445. (in Mongol)
External links
Oirat community portal (archived 1 August 2015) (in Mongolian)
Kalmykia
Ethnic groups in China
Ethnic groups in Russia
History of Mongolia
Mongol peoples
Dzungar Khanate |
423471 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily%20Lau | Emily Lau | Emily Lau Wai-hing, JP (; born 21 January 1952) is a politician in Hong Kong who champions press freedom and human rights. A former journalist, she became the first woman directly elected on the Legislative Council of Hong Kong in the 1991 LegCo elections. She has served as Legislative Councillor for the New Territories East Constituency throughout the 1990s and 2000s until she stepped down in 2016. She was chairperson of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong until 2016.
Early life
Lau was born on 21 January 1952 in Hong Kong. In 1948, Lau's parents moved from Guangdong to Hong Kong during the Chinese Civil War. In 1962, attended the new English-language Maryknoll Sisters' School in Happy Valley, where she studied until 1972. When she was in primary school, she was given the English name Emily by her aunt.
Education
In 1976, Lau earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Broadcast Journalism from University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. She later cited the Watergate scandal and investigative journalism having had a major formative effect on her views on the role and potential of the free press.
Journalism career
After returning to Hong Kong, Lau worked between 1976 and 1978 as a reporter for the South China Morning Post, the major English-language newspaper in Hong Kong. She then started doing television journalism when she joined the Television Broadcasts (TVB) and was promoted to senior producer in 1981. She continued her studies in the early 1980s at the London School of Economics and completed an MSc in International Relations in 1982. She held a position as assistant producer at the BBC between 1982 and 1984, while concurrently working as the London correspondent of Hong Kong TVB News.
It was at this time that the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom discussed the fate of Hong Kong after 1997. She later noted, "My passion for politics began to develop in 1982, when China told Britain that it would impose a settlement on Hong Kong if the two sides could not reach an agreement by 1984. From that moment, politics began to matter."
Lau returned to Hong Kong as Hong Kong correspondent of the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review in 1984. The position allowed her access and insights into the politics of the colonial Hong Kong. In 1987 Lau took up a position at the Journalism and Communication Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and subsequently at the Extra-Mural Department of the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
In December 1984, after signing the Sino-British Joint Declaration, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher flew to Hong Kong to give a press conference. Lau questioned Thatcher: "Prime Minister, two days ago you signed an agreement with China promising to deliver over 5 million people into the hands of a communist dictatorship. Is that morally defensible, or is it really true that in international politics the highest form of morality is one's own national interest?" Thatcher replied by saying that everyone in Hong Kong was happy with the agreement, and Lau may be a solitary exception.
Lau was also involved with the Hong Kong Journalists Association during this period, serving first as an executive committee member, then vice-chair and finally chairperson from 1989 to 1991.
Legislative Councillor
Last years of the colonial period
When the direct elections for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) were first introduced in the 1991 elections, Lau resigned from her posts and ran for office in the New Territories East geographical constituency (GC). She campaigned for five months portraying herself as a new breed of politician in Hong Kong, appealing to a broad section of the Hong Kong population. The elections saw a liberal landslide victory and she became the first woman elected in direct elections, together with her fellow pro-democracy politicians of the United Democrats of Hong Kong (UDHK). Their success was in part due to the fear of Communist China by the Hong Kong population after the Tiananmen massacre of early June 1989.
In this period, Lau became a household name in Hong Kong politics and the legislator came to be known as both a champion of her constituents and a thorn in the side of the Hong Kong administration. She was equally a critic of Britain and Beijing. The last British Governor Chris Patten aimed at a faster pace of democratisation. Governor Patten carried out the reform packages which extended voting rights to millions of people in the revised functional constituency indirect elections. The reform packages were ferociously criticised by the Beijing government for violating the Sino-British agreements. During the reform packages discussions, Lau proposed a private member's bill which would have allowed all 60 Legislative Council seats to be directly elected in the 1995 election. The bill was beaten by only one vote.
In 1993, Lau tabled a motion to seek assurances of right of abode in Britain for the British National (Overseas) passport holders in case they were expelled from Hong Kong after 1997. The motion was supported by 36 legislators but was rejected by the Secretary for Security Alistair Asprey. In October 1994, Lau led legislators in urging Britain to grant full citizenship to 3.5 million native Hong Kong British Dependent Territories Citizens (BDTC). As part of this action, she led a cross-party delegation of Hong Kong legislators to Britain to lobby government and opposition politicians ahead of the LegCo debate. The five councillors met the British Foreign Secretary and other senior officials, but achieved little.
In the 1995 Legislative Council elections Lau was re-elected in her constituency with 58.51 per cent of votes cast, the highest figure among all of the geographical constituencies. Growing disillusioned with the Democratic Party, the pro-democracy party formed in 1994 to replace the United Democrats of Hong Kong, in August 1996 Lau founded a new political group, The Frontier, which took a more aggressively pro-democracy, pro-human rights and anti-Communist Party stance, with left wing positions on economic matters. Lau became the Convenor of the new party, which managed to obtain five legislators and become the fourth largest political group in the legislature before the handover. Lau remained in the Legislative Council until it was disbanded by the PRC following the handover on 1 July 1997.
Lau also participated in street protests and in December 1996 she scuffled with the riot police outside the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre together with Andrew Cheng and Lee Cheuk-yan, while demonstrating outside the closed-door election for the post-handover Chief executive.
She was therefore arrested with 29 other pro-democracy activists. Over the months leading up to the July 1997 handover, Lau urged the Chief executive-designate Tung Chee-hwa to stand up against Beijing, since his "unreserved support" for the Beijing-hand-picked Provisional Legislative Council resulted in the abolishment or modification of important Hong Kong laws covering human rights and civil liberties. In March of the same year Lau called for the boycott of Hong Kong's future first election under PRC rule, condemning the voting system as unfair and the proportional representation as highly favouring pro-Beijing candidates.
Early post-handover era
After the handover in 1998 she was required to relinquish her British passport and adopt Chinese citizenship to be eligible in running for the 1998 Hong Kong legislative election. The pro-democracy camp ended up winning 63 per cent of the popular vote and Lau was returned again to the Legislative Council where she remained until her retirement.
Lau led The Frontier to put pressure on the government for an early democratisation of Hong Kong and was an outspoken critic of a number of LedCo motions, especially on the topic of human rights; she was also sceptical of the reliability of the "One country, two systems" principle. Beside pushing for tightened human rights protection, greater efforts on equal opportunities and the establishment of a statutory right to access to information, she advocated for a complete rewrite of the Basic Law (Hong Kong's constitutional document) and for democracy in mainland China. In terms of economics policy, she supported legislation on fair trading, opposed the import of foreign labour and called for the introduction of a minimum wage. Lau received the Bruno Kreisky Award for her human rights work in 1998.
In 1998, Lau sued the Hong Kong branch of the Xinhua News Agency over its slow response to her queries for personal information. She lost the case and was ordered by the court to pay legal fees of HK$1.6 million. Claiming that her lawsuit was in the public interest, she attempted to raise funds from the general public to pay for this injunction. By December 2000 she was still $1 million short and the agency (now the Central People's Government Liaison Office) applied to the court for her bankruptcy.
In the 2002 Chief executive election, Lau was against supporting an alternative candidate as some pro-democracy allies argued: "As it is not a fair, open and democratic election, we should not participate in it and give it any legitimacy." Lau co-founded the Coalition Against Second Term (CAST) to draw attention to the flawed process of choosing the Chief executive, the lack of competition and the need for real democracy.
On international issues, Lau is supportive of self-determination for Taiwan. In 2003, she and another legislator, James To of the Democratic Party, attended a seminar entitled "Hong Kong Under One Country, Two Systems" organised by a pro-Taiwan independence group headed by former ROC President Lee Teng-hui. Lau stated that "Taiwan's future should be determined by the Taiwan people themselves". Her subsequent refusal to explicitly recognise Taiwan as a part of the PRC during an interview again drew criticism from more conservative sectors of the Hong Kong society, including attacks from pro-Beijing politician Leung Chun-ying, who became Chief executive in 2012.
Beside her legal problems, Lau has been the victim of several criminal nuisance cases, including telephone nuisance to her office in January and October 2003, and two occasions when food and/or faeces were splashed outside her office in Shatin, in July and September 2003. A woman and an old man were arrested and fined in connection with some of these cases. Most notably, an arson attack against Lau's office took place on 21 June 2004. Posters outside her office, about an upcoming rally, were burned. Words were left saying "All Chinese traitors must die."
She fiercely opposed the controversial national security bill in 2002 and 2003, as it was clashing with requirements of the Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23. After the 2003 July 1 march in 2003, she was the second candidate listed on the joint list with other pro-democrats parties in the New Territories East constituency and was elected again in the 2004 Legislative Council elections. She was also nominated chairwoman of the Legislative Council Finance Committee, position that she covered on and off until 2012.
In the Chief executive election held in 2005 after unpopular Tung Chee-hwa stepped down, Lau announced her interest in running for the post, to foster discussions over Hong Kong's democratic development. Due to the opposition from secretary-general Andrew To and from other members of The Frontier, Lau ultimately did not run in the election. Democratic Party chairman Lee Wing-tat remained the sole pro-democratic candidate in this election, but he did not manage to secure the threshold of 100 nominations necessary for the job.
Joining the Democratic Party and 2012 reform package
At the time of her election to LegCo in 1991, Lau was generally considered to be the most radical legislator in Hong Kong. However over time her radical image was overshadowed by activist Leung Kwok-hung and other radicals and her popular votes continuously declined. In September 2008 LegCo elections Emily Lau was barely re-elected in the New Territories East constituency, obtaining much fewer votes than in past elections. After reviewing the election results, in November 2008 The Frontier decided to merge with the more mainstream Democratic Party and Lau became one of its two vice-chairpersons. After this, her earlier strident stance toward the Beijing government and her fierce opposition to pro-Beijing supporters mellowed somewhat: this was perceived by some in a very negative way.
On 24 May 2010, Emily Lau and Democratic Party chairman Albert Ho, together with veteran Cheung Man-kwong met with Beijing representatives headed by Li Gang, the deputy director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Hong Kong, for negotiations over the 2012 constitutional reform package. This was the first meeting between Democratic Party leaders and senior officials from the Chinese central government since the Tiananmen protests of 1989. In June 2010, as vice-chairperson of the Democratic Party, she voted with her party in favour of the government's reform package, which included the party's late amendment – accepted by Beijing – to hold a popular vote for five new District Council (second) functional constituencies.
Lau's less radical behaviour in this period, when compared to more radical populist figures Leung Kwok-hung and Wong Yuk-man, led her to become the main target for attacks by Wong and People Power.
Chairperson of the Democratic Party
In September 2012, the Democratic Party suffered the worst defeat in the party's history in the 2012 Legislative Council election.
Chairman Albert Ho resigned as chairman and Lau became acting Chairperson of the party for three months.
In the party leadership election on 16 December 2012 she was elected chairperson, narrowly defeating vice-chairman Sin Chung-kai (149 votes to 133), therefore becoming the first female leader of the party since its formation in 1994.
Emily Lau and other Democratic Party members supported the 2014 Hong Kong protests.
On 11 December 2014, Lau was arrested by the police with a group of about a hundred demonstrators staging a final sit-in, after a 75-day street occupation. Among these were other prominent democratic legislators including Martin Lee and Alan Leong.
On 14 December 2014, she was re-elected chairperson in the party leadership election, beating three rivals in the party's 20-year history.
On 1 January 2016, Emily Lau announced that she would not seek to be elected for an eighth term in the September election, therefore ending her legislator activity after serving for 25 years in the Legislative Council party primary. She participated to the election in the list of her younger colleague Lam Cheuk-ting and helped him get elected with nearly 40,000 votes.
Lau announced her resignation from the party chair post in December 2016 and was succeeded by legislator Wu Chi-wai.
She also relinquished all of her party positions in the coming months.
After her retirement from the LedCo, she kept working as a television journalist, interviewing several political heavyweights in her shows.
Reputation
Lau is considered a politician with strong convictions on the promotion of democratic human rights and equal opportunities in Hong Kong.
She was labelled by the Hong Kong government as "radical", "outside mainstream public opinion" and a "solitary exception".
She was among the most popular legislators throughout the 1990s. The last British Governor Chris Patten regarded Lau as a "professional politician, handsome, well informed and dashingly eloquent, who would have got to the top in any Western political system" and an "exponent of the incisive soundbite."
Since she joined the Democratic Party, her earlier strident stance toward the Beijing government mellowed somewhat. After she met with the mainland officials for negotiations over the 2012 constitutional reform package and voted with her party in favour of the reforms, she received ferocious attacks from radical democrats for her compromise.
Personal life
In 1983, Lau married John Ball, a British journalist from the Sunday Times. The marriage lasted two years. In 1989, Lau remarried to a Hong Kong lawyer, Winston Poon, QC. They met in London during her visit to discuss the Hong Kong Basic Law with the members of Parliament of the United Kingdom.
In 2006, she changed her marital status to "unmarried" in the Legislative Council office registry.
Stephen Lau Sing-hung, Emily Lau's brother, was a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Guangzhou committee member in the 1980s, was the chairman of Ernst & Young's tax service before he left in 2006 and was chief executive of China Timber Resources Group from 2007 to 2010.
Despite his sister's political stance, he came to notoriety when he filed a claim in the Small Claims Tribunal for HK$314.60 against Occupy Central's organiser Benny Tai during the 2014 Hong Kong protests. The claim was filed since he had to spend HK$320 for a taxi ride on 6 October instead of just HK$5.40 for the bus fare from his home in Wong Nai Chung Gap Road to Central, since the occupation movement prevented the normal bus service. Emily Lau said she was not aware of her brother's action but insisted that her family did not support Stephen Lau's claim.
See also
Human rights in Hong Kong
Politics of Hong Kong
Women in politics
References
External links
2012 Election Blog of Emily Lau
Home Page of Emily Lau
Emily Lau's Letter to former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook (In the letter she urged the UK to grant British citizenship for all BN(O)s)
Emily Lau biography in German and interview in English in cosmopolis.ch
1952 births
Living people
Hong Kong journalists
Alumni of the London School of Economics
USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism alumni
Charter 08 signatories
The Frontier (Hong Kong) politicians
Democratic Party (Hong Kong) politicians
HK LegCo Members 1991–1995
HK LegCo Members 1995–1997
HK LegCo Members 1998–2000
HK LegCo Members 2000–2004
HK LegCo Members 2004–2008
HK LegCo Members 2008–2012
HK LegCo Members 2012–2016
Women opposition leaders
20th-century Hong Kong women politicians
21st-century Hong Kong women politicians |
423475 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared | Jared | Jared is a given name of Biblical derivation.
Origin
In the Book of Genesis, the biblical patriarch Jared (יֶרֶד) was the sixth in the ten pre-flood generations between Adam and Noah; he was the son of Mahalaleel and the father of Enoch, and lived 962 years (Genesis 5:18). The biblical text in the Book of Jubilees implicitly etymologizes the name as derived from the root YRD "descend" because in his days, "the angels of the Lord descended to earth". Alternative suggestions for the name's etymology include words for "rose", "servant" and "one who rules".
Yared (505–571), a namesake, was an Ethiopian monk who introduced the concept of sacred music to Ethiopian Orthodox services. He is regarded as a saint of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, with a feast day of 11 Genbot (May 19).
In some English-speaking countries, Jared is a common Jewish and Christian first name.
People
Arts, entertainment, and media
Jared Abrahamson (born 1987), Canadian actor
Jared Allman (born 1984), American actor
Jared Anderson (Christian musician) (born 1979), American musician and Christian worship leader
Jared Anderson (heavy metal musician) (1974–2006), American musician
Jared Angira (born 1947), Kenyan poet and author
Jared Angle, American ballet dancer
Jared Artaud, American musician
Jared Maurice Arter (1850–1930), American author and former slave
Jared Ball (born 1971), American author and radio host
Jared "Drake" Bell (born 1986), American actor and singer
Jared Blake (born 1978), American musician and actor
Jared Bowen, American journalist and reporter
Jared Breeze (born 2005), American child actor
Jared Bush (born 1974), American screenwriter and television producer
Jared Byers, American musician
Jared Carter (born 1939), American author and editor
Jared Campbell (born 1989), American stand-up comedian and former football player
Jared Cohn, American film director, screenwriter, and actor
Jared Cohon (born 1947), American author, editor, engineer
Jared Cole, American physicist
Jared Colinger, American musician
Jared Cotter (born 1981), American musician
Jared Curtis (born 1936), American author and editor
Jared Daperis (born 1990), Australian actor
Jared DePasquale (born 1971), American film, television, and audio drama composer
Jared Diamond (born 1937), American scientist and author
Jared Dines (born 1989), American musician and YouTuber
Jared Eliot (1685–1763) American colonial minister, physician and agronomist
Jared Emerson-Johnson (born 1981), American video game music composer and voice actor
Jared Evan (born 1989), American musician
Jared Bradley Flagg (1820–1899), American painter
Jared Faber, American film, television producer, and musician
Jared Falk (born 1981), Canadian musician
Jared Farmer (born 1974), American historian and author
Jared Fogle (born 1977), American former spokesman for Subway and registered sex offender
Jared Followill (born 1986), American musician
Jared Freid, American comedian and podcaster
Jared French (1905–1988), American painter
Jared Friedman (born 1984), American entrepreneur and investor
Jared Gertner, American actor
Jared Gilman (born 1998), American actor
Jared Gilmore (born 2000), American actor
Jared Gold (born 1972), American fashion designer
Jared Gold (organist), American musician
Jared Gomes (born 1968), American musician and activist
Jared Ian Goldman (born 1979), American film and television producer
Jared Lee Gosselin (born 1981), American record producer
Jared J. Grantham (1936–2017), American physician, nephrologist, and author
Jared Gutstadt (born 1977), Canadian-born American music executive
Jared Hampton (born 1990), American musician
Jared Harris (born 1961), British actor
Jared Hartmann (born 1985), American musician
Jared Hasselhoff (born 1971), American musician and actor
Jared Hauser (born 1971), American musician and professor
Jared Hecht (born 1987), American entrepreneur
Jared Hedges (born 1980), American screenwriter, television producer, and video games
Jared Hess (born 1979), American filmmaker
Jared Heyman, American entrepreneur
Jared Isaacman (born 1983), American businessman
Jared Israel (born 1944), American writer, activist, and conspiracy theorist
Jared Jussim (born 1935), American lawyer, actor and former executive vice president at Sony Pictures
Jared Keeso (born 1984), Canadian actor
Jared Kuemper, Canadian musician, record producer, and audio engineer
Jared Kusnitz (born 1988), American actor
Jared Lane (born 1972), New Zealand artist and illustrator
Jared Lee (born 1943), Canadian artist and cartoonist
Jared Lehr, American jewelry fashion designer
Jared Leto (born 1971), American actor and musician
Jared Louche (born 1960), American musician
Jared MacEachern (born 1980), American musician
Jared Marston, Australian musician and DJ producer
Jared Martin (1940–2017), American actor
Jared McCloud (born 1980), American musician
Jared Mezzocchi (born 1985), American theatre projection designer and director
Jared Mitchell (writer) (born 1955), Canadian journalist and author
Jared Morgenstern (born 1981), American designer and entrepreneur
Jared Moshe, American film director, screenwriter, and producer
Jared Murillo (born 1988), American dancer, singer, and actor
Jared Nathan (1985–2006), American child actor
Jared James Nichols (born 1989), American musician
Jared Nissim (born 1973), American businessman
Jared Overton, American musician
Jared Padalecki (born 1982), American actor
Jared Palomar, American musician
Jared Pappas-Kelly (born 1974), American curator, author, and visual artist
Jared Paul, American Talent manager and producer
Jared Pelletier (born 1990), Canadian director
Jared Poythress (born 1985), Japanese-born American music producer and DJ
Jared Purton (1976–2009), Australian-born immunologist
Jared Rigsby, American musician
Jared Robinsen (born 1963), Australian actor
Jared Rushton (born 1974), American musician and actor
Jared Safier (born 1982), American television and film producer
Jared Yates Sexton (born 1981), American author and political commentator
Jared Shavelson, American musician
Jared Slingerland (born 1984), Canadian musician
Jared Sorensen, indie role-playing game designer
Jared Southwick, (1976–2011), American musician
Jared Spears (born 1936), American musician
Jared Spool (born 1960), American Author, public speaker, and consultant
Jared Paul Stern (born 1971), American journalist, photographer, and designer
Jared Stern, American screenwriter
Jared Swilley (born 1983), American musician
Jared Taylor (born 1951), American white supremacist and author
Jared Thomas (born 1976), Australian author
Jared Tinklenberg, American psychiatrist and author
Jared Sidney Torrance (1853–1921), American businessman and real estate developer
Jared Turner (born 1978), New Zealand-born Australian actor
Jared Tyler (born 1978), American musician
Jared Van Snellenberg (born 1980), Canadian actor
Jared Wade (born 1989), American musician
Jared Warren, American musician
Jared Warth (born 1986), American musician
Jared Bell Waterbury (1799–1876), American minister and author
Jared Yates, (American Idol) contestant
Government and politics
Jared Benson (1821–1894), American politician
Jared Bernstein (born 1955), American economist, author, and advisor at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Jared Brossett (born 1982), American politician
Jared M. Brush (1814–1895), American politician, 28th Mayor of Pittsburgh PA
Jared Cohen (born 1981), American businessman, author, and advisor at the Council on Foreign Relations
Jared Genser, international human rights lawyer, author, and advisor at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
Jared Golden (born 1982), American politician
Jared Comstock Gregory (1823–1892), American politician, 12th Mayor of Madison WI
Jared Hegwood, American author and writer for the United States Naval Oceanographic Office
Jared Henderson, American politician
Jared Huffman (born 1964), American politician
Jared Ingersol Chipman (1788–1832), Nova Scotian lawyer and politician
Jared Ingersoll (1749–1822), American politician
Jared Ingersoll Sr. (1722–1781) American stamp act agent
Jared Irwin (1750–1818), American politician, 22nd Governor of Georgia
Jared Irwin (Pennsylvania politician) (1768–1818), American politician and zoologist
Jared Potter Kirtland (1793–1877), American politician
Jared Kushner (born 1981), American businessman and senior advisor to President Donald Trump
Jared Maddux (1911–1971), American politician
Jared Mansfield (1759–1830), American mathematician, Professor at the United States Military Academy and Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory
Jared Mead (born 1991), American politician
Jared Moskowitz (born 1980), American politician
Jared Nunes (born 1982), American politician
Jared Olsen (born 1987), American politician
Jared O'Mara (born 1981), former British politician
Jared Patterson, American politician
Jared Paul Stratton, American politician
Jared V. Peck (1816–1891), American politician
Jared Perkins (1793–1854), American politician
Jared Polis (born 1975), American politician, 43rd Governor of Colorado
Jared Y. Sanders Jr. (1892–1960), American lawyer and politician
Jared Y. Sanders Sr. (1869–1944), American politician
Jared Solomon (born 1978), American politician
Jared Solomon (Maryland politician), American politician
Jared Sparks (1789–1866), American historian and politician
Jared Thompson Jr. (1836–1914), American lawyer and politician
Jared C. Troop (1837–1876), Canadian lawyer and politician
Jared Weinstein (born 1979), former government official and personal aide to the 43rd President of the United States
Jared Whitaker (1818–1884), American newspaperman and politician
Jared W. Williams (1796–1864), American lawyer and politician
Jared Williams (Virginia politician) (1766–1831), American politician
Jared Woodfill (born 1968), American lawyer and politician
Jared Wright, American newspaper editor and former politician
Sports
Jared Abbrederis (born 1990), American football player
Jared Allen (born 1982), American football player
Jared Allen (quarterback) (born 1981), American football coach and former player
Jared Anderson (boxer) (born 1999), American boxer
Jared Aulin (born 1982), Canadian ice hockey player
Jared Barker (born 1975), Canadian rugby union player
Jared Bednar (born 1972), Canadian ice hockey coach and former player
Jared Benko, American athletic director
Jared Berggren (born 1990), American basketball player
Jared Bird (born 1997), English football player
Jared Bidwell (born 1987), Australian rower
Jared Boll (born 1986), American ice hockey player
Jared Borgetti (born 1973), Mexican football player
Jared Brennan (born 1984), Australian rules football player
Jared Brown (born 1973), American football player
Jared Brownridge (born 1994), American basketball player
Jared Burton (born 1981), American baseball player
Jared Butler (born 2000), American basketball player
Jared Cannonier (born 1984), American mixed martial artist
Jared Clauss (born 1981), American football player
Jared Connaughton (born 1985), Canadian sprinter
Jared Cook (born 1987), American football player
Jared Coreau (born 1991), Canadian ice hockey player
Jared Cowen (born 1991), Canadian ice hockey player
Jared Crick (born 1989), American football player
Jared Crouch (born 1978), Australian rules football player
Jared Cunningham (born 1991), American basketball player
Jared Curtis (footballer) (born 1979), Samoan football player
Jared Deacon (born 1975), British sprinter
Jared DeMichiel (born 1985), American ice hockey coach and former player
Jared DeVries (born 1976), American football player
Jared Dillinger (born 1984), Filipino-American basketball player
Jared Donaldson (born 1996), American tennis player
Jared Downing (born 1989), American mixed martial artist
Jared Dudley (born 1985), American basketball player
Jared Elliott, American football coach
Jared Embick (born 1978), American soccer coach and former player
Jared Fernández (born 1972), American baseball player
Jared Frayer (born 1978), American wrestler
Jared Gaither (born 1986), American football player
Jared Garcia (born 1982) American BMX rider
Jared Goff (born 1994), American football player
Jared Goldberg (born 1991), American alpine skier
Jared Gomes (ice hockey) (born 1988), Canadian ice hockey player
Jared Gordon (born 1988), American mixed martial artist
Jared Grasso (born 1980), American basketball coach and former player
Jared Graves (born 1982), Australian cyclist
Jared Green (born 1989), American football player
Jared Hamman (born 1982), American martial artist
Jared Harper (born 1997), American basketball player
Jared Hassin (born 1989), American football player
Jared Heine (born 1984), Marshallese swimmer
Jared Hess (fighter) (born 1983), American mixed martial artist
Jared Hodgkiss (born 1986), English football player
Jared Homan (born 1983), American basketball player
Jared Hoying (born 1989), American baseball player
Jared Hughes (born 1985), American baseball player
Jared Jarvis (born 1994), Antigua and Barbuda sprinter
Jared Jeffrey (born 1990), American soccer player
Jared Jeffries (born 1981), American basketball player
Jared Jenkins (born 1989), American football player
Jared Jordan (born 1984), American basketball player
Jarred Kelenic (born 1999), American baseball player
Jared Kelley (born 2001), American baseball player
Jared Khasa (born 1997), French football player
Jared Kirby, American fencing instructor and martial artist
Jared Koenig (born 1994), American baseball player
Jared Koster (born 1991), Canadian football player
Jared Lakind (born 1992), American baseball player
Jared Landers (born 1982), American racing driver
Jared Lewis (born 1982), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines sprinter
Jared London (born 1995), Trinidadian and Tobagonians football player
Jared Lorenzen (1981-2019), American football player
Jared Lum (born 1992), Australian soccer player
Jared Mayden (born 1998), American football player
Jared McCann (born 1996), Canadian ice hockey player
Jared McGee, American football player
Jared McGriff-Culver (born 1989), American football player
Jared Mees (born 1986), American motorcycle racer
Jared Mitchell (baseball) (born 1988), American baseball player
Jared Mills (born 1976), New Zealand rugby league player
Jared Montz (born 1982), American soccer player
Jared Moon (born 1971), American baseball coach and former player
Jared Mortensen (born 1988), Canadian baseball player
Jared Newberry (born 1981), American football player
Jared Newson (born 1984), American basketball player
Jared Nickens (born 1994), American basketball player
Jared Nightingale (born 1982), American ice hockey player
Jared Norman (born 1974), English cricketer
Jared Norris (born 1993), American football player
Jared Odenbeck (born 1995), American soccer player
Jared Odrick (born 1987), American football player
Jared Oliva (born 1995), American baseball player
Jared Page (born 1993), New Zealand rugby union player
Jared Palmer (born 1971), American tennis player
Jared Panchia (born 1993), New Zealand field hockey player
Jared Payne (born 1985), New Zealand-born Irish rugby union player
Jared Peniston (born 1982), Bermudian football player
Jared Perry (born 1988), American football player
Jared Petrenko (born 1989), Australian rules football player
Jarred Phillips (born 1995), Canadian soccer player
Jared Pinkney (born 1997), American football player
Jared Poché (born 1994), American baseball player
Jared Polec (born 1992), Australian rules football player
Jared Poulton (born 1977), Australian rules football player
Jared Rando (born 1981), Australian mountain biker
Jared Reiner (born 1982), American basketball player
Jared Retkofsky (born 1983), American football player
Jared Rhoden (born 1999), American basketball player
Jared Rivers (born 1984), Australian rules football player
Jared Rollins (born 1977), American mixed martial artist
Jared Rosholt (born 1986), American mixed martial artist
Jared Ross (born 1982), American ice hockey player
Jared Rosser (born 1997), Welsh rugby union player
Jared Sandberg (born 1978), American baseball coach and former player
Jared Saunders (born 1990), South African rugby union player
Jared Savage (born 1997), American basketball player
Jared Schuurmans (born 1987), American discus thrower
Jared "Skip" Schumaker (born 1980), American baseball player
Jared Shuster (born 1998), American baseball player
Jared Simpson (born 1996), English rugby league player
Jared Sims (born 1993), English football player
Jared Smith (born 1990), American football player
Jared Solomon (baseball) (born 1997), American baseball player
Jared Spurgeon (born 1989), Canadian ice hockey player
Jared Staal (born 1990), Canadian ice hockey player
Jared Stroud (born 1996), American soccer player
Jared Sullinger (born 1992), American basketball player
Jared Tallent (born 1984), Australian race walker
Jared Taylor (rugby league) (born 1981), French rugby league player
Jared Tebo (born 1987), American radio-controlled car racer
Jared Terrell (born 1995), American basketball player
Jared Theodorakos (born 1981), American baseball player
Jared Timmer (born 1997), American soccer player
Jared du Toit (born 1995), Canadian golfer
Jared Tomich (born 1974), American football player
Jarred Vanderbilt (born 1999), American basketball player
Jared Veldheer (born 1987), American football player
Jared Verse, American football player
Jared Waerea-Hargreaves (born 1989), New Zealand rugby league player
Jared Walsh (born 1993), American baseball player
Jared Ward (born 1988), American long-distance runner
Jared Warner (born 1996), English cricketer
Jared Watts (born 1992), American soccer player
Jared Wayne (born 2000), Canadian American football player
Jared Weaver (born 1982), American baseball player
Jared Wells (born 1981), American baseball player
Jared Wilson (footballer) (born 1989), English football player
Jared Wolfe (born 1988), American golfer
Jared Young (born 1995), Canadian baseball player
Jared Zabransky (born 1983), American football player
Jared Zezel (born 1991), American curler
Other people
Jared Carter (Latter Day Saints) (1801–1849), early American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement
Jared Crane, son of American businessman Jim Crane
Jared Kleinstein, American baseball fan who mimicked baseball player Tim Tebow for kneeling during the U.S. national anthem
Jared Lee Loughner (born 1988), American criminal who was arrested for the 2011 Tucson shooting
Jared C. Monti (1975–2006), American soldier who was killed in action during the War in Afghanistan
Jared Pratt (1769–1839), American and father of the Mormon pioneer brothers
Jared Remy (born 1978), American criminal who was involved in the assault and murder of Jennifer Martel
Jared Robinet, American police officer who was involved in the shooting of Stephon Clark
Fictional characters
Jared, fictional character from the television show Kids Incorporated (portrayed by Jared Delgin)
Jared Afeaki, fictional character from television show Shortland Street (portrayed by Beulah Koale)
Jared Banks, fictional character from television show One Life to Live (portrayed by John Brotherton)
Jared Casey, fictional character from television show Passions (portrayed by James Stevenson)
Jared Dunn, fictional character from television show Silicon Valley (portrayed by Zach Woods)
Jared Garrity, fictional character from television show The Twilight Zone (portrayed by John Dehner)
Jared Evan Grace, fictional from the movie The Spiderwick Chronicles (portrayed by Freddie Highmore)
Jared Hall, fictional character from the television show One Life to Live (portrayed by Herve Clermont)
Jared Haynes, fictional character from the television show Emmerdale (portrayed by Philip Hill-Pearson)
Jared Kincaid, fictional character from Jim Butcher's novel series The Dresden Files
Jared Kleinman, fictional character from the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen (portrayed by Alex Wyse, Will Roland, Jared Goldsmith, and Jack Loxton)
Jared Levine, fictional character from the television show All Saints (portrayed by Ben Tari)
Jared "Munter" Mason, fictional character from the television show Outrageous Fortune (portrayed by Tammy Davis)
Jared Morillo, fictional character from the DC comic series Rogues
Jared Morillo (Arrowverse), fictional character from the television show The Flash (portrayed by Stephen Huszar)
Jared Nomak, fictional character from the movie Blade 2 (portrayed by Luke Goss)
Jared Vasquez, fictional character from Manifest (portrayed by J. R. Ramirez)
Jared Bakravan, fictional character from James Clavell's novel Whirlwind
Jared Vance (portrayed by Akinsola Arimbo), son of fictional character Leon Vance from the television show NCIS
See also
Jarad, given name
References
English masculine given names
Masculine given names
Given names
Jewish given names
Modern names of Hebrew origin |
423479 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-tailed%20black%20cockatoo | Yellow-tailed black cockatoo | The yellow-tailed black cockatoo (Zanda funerea) is a large cockatoo native to the south-east of Australia measuring in length. It has a short crest on the top of its head. Its plumage is mostly brownish black and it has prominent yellow cheek patches and a yellow tail band. The body feathers are edged with yellow giving a scalloped appearance. The adult male has a black beak and pinkish-red eye-rings, and the female has a bone-coloured beak and grey eye-rings. In flight, yellow-tailed black cockatoos flap deeply and slowly, with a peculiar heavy fluid motion. Their loud, wailing calls carry for long distances. The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is found in temperate forests and forested areas across south and central eastern Queensland to southeastern South Australia, including a very small population persisting in the Eyre Peninsula. Two subspecies are recognised, although Tasmanian and southern mainland populations of the southern subspecies xanthanotus may be distinct enough from each other to bring the total to three. Birds of subspecies funereus (Queensland to eastern Victoria) have longer wings and tails and darker plumage overall, while those of xanthanotus (western Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania) have more prominent scalloping.
The subspecies whiteae is found south of Victoria to the East of South Australia and is smaller in size.
The yellow-tailed black cockatoo's diet primarily includes seeds of native and introduced plants while also feeding on wood-boring grubs. They nest in large hollows high in old growth native trees (~ greater than 200 years old), generally Eucalyptus regnans. Although they remain common throughout much of their range, fragmentation of habitat and loss of large trees suitable for nesting has caused population decline in Victoria and South Australia. Furthermore, the species may lose most of its mainland range due to climate change. In some places yellow-tailed black cockatoos appear to have partially adapted to recent human alteration of landscape and they can often be seen in parts of urban Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. The species is not commonly seen in aviculture, especially outside Australia. Like most parrots, it is protected by CITES, an international agreement that makes trade, export, and import of listed wild-caught species illegal.
Taxonomy and naming
The yellow-tailed black cockatoo was first described in 1794 by the English naturalist George Shaw as Psittacus funereus, its specific name funereus relating to its dark and sombre plumage, as if dressed for a funeral. The French zoologist Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest reclassified it in the new genus Calyptorhynchus in 1826.
The ornithologist John Gould knew the bird as the funereal cockatoo. "Yellow-tailed black cockatoo" has been designated the official name by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC). Other common names used include yellow-eared black cockatoo, and wylah. Wy-la was an aboriginal term from the Hunter Region of New South Wales, while the Dharawal name from the Illawarra region is Ngaoaraa. Scientist and cockatoo authority Matt Cameron has proposed dropping the "black" and shortening the name to "yellow-tailed cockatoo", explaining that shorter names are more widely accepted.
Among the black cockatoos, the two Western Australian white-tailed species (Carnaby's and Baudin's black cockatoos), together with the yellow-tailed black cockatoo (Z. funerea) of eastern Australia, form the genus Zanda. The two red-tailed species, red-tailed black cockatoo (C. banksii) and glossy black cockatoo (C. lathami), form the genus Calyptorhynchus. The three species of Zanda were formerly included in Calyptorhynchus (and still are by some authorities), but are now widely placed in a genus of their own due to a deep genetic divergence between the two groups. The two genera differ in tail color, head pattern, juvenile food begging calls and the degree of sexual dimorphism. Males and females of Calyptorhynchus sensu stricto differ markedly in appearance, whereas those of Zanda have similar plumage.
The three species of the genus Zanda have been variously considered as two, then as a single species for many years. In a 1979 paper, Australian ornithologist Denis Saunders highlighted the similarity between the short-billed and the southern race xanthanota of the yellow-tailed and treated them as a single species, with the long-billed as a distinct species. He proposed that Western Australia had been colonised on two separate occasions, once by a common ancestor of all three forms (which became the long-billed black cockatoo), and later by what has become the short-billed black cockatoo. However, an analysis of protein allozymes published in 1984 revealed the two Western Australian forms to be more closely related to each other than to the yellow-tailed, and the consensus since then has been to treat them as three separate species.
Within the species, two subspecies are recognised:
Z. f. funerea, the nominate form, is known as the eastern yellow-tailed black cockatoo. It is found from the Berserker Range in Central Queensland, south through New South Wales, and into eastern Victoria. It is distinguished by its overall larger size, longer tail and wings, and larger bill and claws.
Z. f. xanthanota, known as the southern yellow-tailed black cockatoo, is found in western Victoria, southeastern South Australia, the islands of Bass Strait, and Tasmania. Gould described it in 1838 and later changed his spelling to "xanthonotus". However, the first name was recognised as taking precedence under ICZN naming rules and its spelling preserved. Saunders reported in 1979 that male birds from Tasmania had wider bills than their mainland relatives, and that Tasmanian female birds were larger than males. However, this observation has yet to be replicated and most authorities only recognise two subspecies. If a third subspecies is recognised, the southern mainland subspecies would be named whiteae, having been named so by Gregory Mathews in 1912, and the name xanthanotus, originally applied to a Tasmanian specimen, would be restricted to the Tasmanian population.
Description
The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is in length and 750–900 grams in weight. It has a short mobile crest on the top of its head, and the plumage is mostly brownish-black with paler feather-margins in the neck, nape, and wings, and pale yellow bands in the tail feathers. The tails of birds of subspecies funereus measure around , with an average tail length longer than xanthanotus. Male funereus birds weigh on average around and females weigh about . Birds of the xanthanotus race on the mainland average heavier than the Tasmanian birds; the males on the mainland weigh on average around 630 g and females , while those on Tasmania average 583 and respectively. Both mainland and Tasmanian birds of the xanthanotus race average about in tail length. The plumage is a more solid brown-black in the eastern subspecies, while the southern race has more pronounced yellow scalloping on the underparts.
The male yellow-tailed black cockatoo has a black bill, a dull yellow patch behind each eye, and pinkish or reddish eye-rings. The female has grey eye-rings, a horn-coloured bill, and brighter and more clearly defined yellow cheek-patches. Immature birds have duller plumage overall, a horn-coloured bill, and grey eye-rings; The upper beak of the immature male darkens to black by two years of age, commencing at the base of the bill and spreading over ten weeks. The lower beak blackens later by four years of age. The elongated bill has a pointed maxilla (upper beak), suited to digging out grubs from tree branches and trunks. Records of the timing of the eye ring changing from grey to pink in male birds are sparse, but have been recorded anywhere from one to four years of age. Australian farmer and amateur ornithologist John Courtney proposed that the similarity between juvenile and female eye rings prevented adult males becoming aggressive to younger birds. He also observed the eye rings to flush brighter in aggressive males. Moulting appears to take place in stages over the course of a year, and is poorly understood.
The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is distinguished from other dark-plumaged birds by its yellow tail and ear markings, and its contact call. Parts of its range overlap with the ranges of two cockatoo species that have red tail banding, the red-tailed cockatoo and the glossy black cockatoo. Crow species may appear similar when seen flying at a distance; however, crows have shorter tails, a quicker wing beat, and different calls.
An all-yellow bird lacking black pigment was recorded in Wauchope, New South Wales, in December 1996, and it remained part of the local group of cockatoos for four years. Birds with part-yellow plumage have been recorded from different areas in Victoria.
Distribution and habitat
The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is found up to above sea level over southeastern Australia including the island of Tasmania and the islands of the Bass Strait (King, Flinders, Cape Barren islands), and also on Kangaroo Island. On Tasmania and the islands of the Bass Strait it is the only native black-coloured cockatoo. On the mainland, it is found from the vicinity of Gin Gin and Gympie in south and central eastern Queensland, south through New South Wales, where it occurs along the Great Dividing Range and to the coast, and into and across most of Victoria bar the northern and northwestern corner, to the Coorong and Mount Lofty Ranges in southeastern South Australia. A tiny population numbering 30 to 40 birds inhabits the Eyre Peninsula. There they are found in sugar gum (Eucalyptus cladocalyx) woodland in the lower peninsula and migrate to the mallee areas in the northern peninsula after breeding. There is evidence that birds on the New South Wales south coast move from elevated areas to lower lying areas towards the coast in winter. They are generally common or locally very common in a wide range of habits, although they tend to be locally rare at the limits of their range. Their breeding range is restricted to areas with large old trees.
The birds prefers native temperate forests, while also being ubiquitous in pine plantations, and occasionally in urban areas, as long as there is a plentiful food supply. They have also spread to parts of suburban Sydney, particularly on or near golf courses, pine plantations and parks, such as Centennial Park in the eastern suburbs. It is unclear whether this is adaptive or because of loss of habitat elsewhere. In urban Melbourne, they have been recorded at Yarra Bend Park. The "Black Saturday bushfires" of 2009 appear to have caused sufficient loss of their natural habitat for them to have been sighted in other parts of the urban areas of Melbourne as well. Furthermore, climate change is predicted to cause a major loss of habitat on Australian mainland.
They are also found along the Mornington peninsula.
Ecology and behaviour
Yellow-tailed black cockatoos are diurnal, raucous and noisy, and are often heard before being seen. They make long journeys by flying at a considerable height while calling to each other, and they are often seen flying high overhead in pairs, or trios comprising a pair and their young, or small groups. Outside of the breeding season in autumn or winter they may coalesce into flocks of a hundred birds or more, while family interactions between pairs or trios are maintained. They are generally wary birds, although they can be less shy in urban and suburban areas. They generally keep to trees, only coming to ground level to inspect fallen pine or Banksia cones or to drink. Flight is fluid and has been described as "lazy", with deep, slow wingbeats.
Tall eucalypts that are emergent over other trees in wooded areas are selected for roosting sites. It is here that the cockatoos rest for the night, and also rest to shelter from the heat of the day. They often socialise before dusk, engaging in preening, feeding young, and flying acrobatically. Flocks will return to roost earlier in bad weather.
The usual call is a high-pitched wailing contact call, kee-ow … kee-ow … kee-ow, made while flying or roosting, and can be heard from afar. Birds may also make a harsh screeching alarm call. They also make a soft, chuckling call when searching for cossid moth larvae. Adults are normally quiet when feeding, while juveniles make frequent noisy begging calls. The superb lyrebird can mimic the adult yellow-tailed black cockatoo's contact call with some success.
Breeding
The breeding season varies according to latitude, taking place from April to July in Queensland, January to May in northern New South Wales, December to February in southern New South Wales, and October to February in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. The male yellow-tailed black cockatoo courts by puffing up his crest and spreading his tail feathers to display his yellow plumage. Softly growling, he approaches the female and bows to her three or four times. His eye ring may also flush a deeper pink. Nesting takes place in large vertical tree hollows of tall trees, generally eucalypts, which may be living or dead. Isolated trees are generally chosen, so birds can fly to and from them relatively unhindered. The same tree may be used for many years. A 1994 study of nesting sites in Eucalyptus regnans forest in the Strzelecki Ranges in eastern Victoria found the average age of trees used for hollows by the yellow-tailed black cockatoo to be 228 years. The authors noted that the proposed 80–150 year rotation time for managed forests would impact on the numbers of suitable trees.
Hollows can be deep and wide, with a base of woodchips. A chance felling of a eucalypt known to have been used as a nesting tree near Scottsdale in northeastern Tasmania allowed accurate measurements to be made, yielding a hollow measuring high by wide at the mouth, and at least deep, in a tree which measured in diameter below the hollow. Both the male and female prepare the hollow for breeding, which involves peeling or scraping off wood shavings from the inside the hollow to prepare bedding for the eggs. Gum leaves are occasionally added as well. The clutch consists of one or two white lustreless rounded oval eggs which may have the occasional lime nodule. The first egg averages around 47 or 48 mm long and 37 mm in diameter (2 × 1.4 in). The second egg is around 2 mm smaller all over and is laid two to seven days later. The female incubates the eggs alone and begins after the completion of laying. She enters the hollow feet first, and is visited by the male who brings food two to four times a day. Later both parents help to raise the chicks. The second chick is neglected and usually perishes in infancy. Information on the breeding of birds in the wild is lacking; however, the incubation period in captivity is 28–31 days. Newly hatched chicks are covered with yellow down and have pink beaks that fade to a greyish white by the time of fledging. Chicks fledge from the nest three months after hatching, and remain in the company of their parents until the next breeding season.
Like other cockatoos, this species is long-lived. A pair of yellow-tailed black cockatoos at Rotterdam Zoo stopped breeding when they were 41 and 37 years of age, but still showed signs of close bonding. Birds appear to reach sexual maturity between four and six years of age; this is the age range of breeding recorded in captivity.
Feeding
The diet of the yellow-tailed black cockatoo is varied and available from a range of habitats within its distribution, which reduces their vulnerability to degradation or change in habitat. Much of the diet comprises seeds of native trees, particularly she-oaks (Allocasuarina and Casuarina, including A. torulosa and A. verticillata), but also Eucalyptus (including E. maculata flowers and E. nitida seeds), Acacia (including gum exudate and galls), Banksia (including the green seed pods and seeds of B. serrata, B. integrifolia, and B. marginata), and Hakea species (including H. gibbosa, H. rugosa, H. nodosa, H. sericea, H. cycloptera, and H. dactyloides). They are also partial to pine cones in plantations of the introduced Pinus radiata and to other introduced trees, including Cupressus torulosa, Betula pendula and the buds of elm Ulmus species. In the Eyre Peninsula, the yellow-tailed black cockatoo has become dependent on the introduced Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis), alongside native species. Nectar is also included in the diet such as that from native shrubs including Grevillea sp. and Lambertia formosa.
The yellow-tailed black cockatoo is very fond of the larvae of tree-boring beetles, such as the longhorn beetle Tryphocaria acanthocera, and cossid moth Xyleutes boisduvali. Birds seek them all year but especially in June and July, when the moth caterpillars are largest, and they are accompanied by their just fledged young. They search out holes and make exploratory bites looking for larvae. If successful, they peel and tear down a strip of bark to make a perch for themselves before continuing to gouge and excavate the larvae, which have deeply tunneled into the heartwood.
A yellow-tailed black cockatoo was observed stripping pieces of bark off the trunk of a dead Leptospermum tree in Acacia melanoxylon swamp near Togari in northwestern Tasmania. It then scraped a layer of white material about 0.5 mm thick from the inner surface with its beak. This white layer turned out to be hyphomycete fungi and slime mould that grew in the cambium of the bark.
Yellow-tailed black cockatoos have been reported flocking to Banksia cones ten days after bushfire as the follicles open. With pine trees, they prefer green cones, nipping them off at the stem and holding in one foot, then systematically lifting each segment and extracting the seed. A cockatoo spends about twenty minutes on each pine cone.
They drink at various places, from stock troughs to puddles, and do so in the early morning or late in the afternoon. Insect larvae and Fabaceae seeds are among food reported to have been fed to young.
Parasites
In 2004, a captive yellow-tailed black cockatoo and two free-living tawny frogmouths (Podargus strigoides) suffering neurological symptoms were shown to be hosting the rat nematode Angiostrongylus cantonensis. They were the first non-mammalian hosts discovered for the organism. A species of feather mite, Psittophagus calyptorhynchi, has also been isolated from the yellow-tailed black cockatoo, its only host to date.
Relationship with humans
Yellow-tailed black cockatoos can cause damage in pine and Eucalyptus plantations by weakening stems through gouging out pieces of wood to extract moth larvae. In places with these gum plantations, the population of the larva of the cossid moth Xyleutes boisduvali grows, which then leads to increased predation (and hence tree damage) by cockatoos. Furthermore, plantations generally lack undergrowth which might have prevented cockatoos from damaging younger trees. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos were shot as pests in some districts of New South Wales until the 1940s for this reason.
Although it is classified as least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and not listed nationally as threatened, the yellow-tailed black cockatoo is declining in numbers in Victoria and South Australia. This is due to habitat fragmentation and loss of large trees used for breeding hollows, although birds have become more plentiful in the vicinity of pine plantations. It is listed as vulnerable in South Australia, due to its decline in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges, and particularly the perilous status of the small isolated population on the Eyre Peninsula, which has declined sharply since European settlement, probably from loss of suitable habitat. A recovery program was commenced in 1998. Efforts to increase the population include fencing off remnants of native bushland, planting food plants such as Hakea rugosa, monitoring breeding, and raising chicks in captivity. As a result, the population has increased from a low of 19–21 individuals in 1998.
This species was seldom seen in captivity before the late 1950s, after which time a large number of wild-caught birds entered the Australian market. Since then, it has become more common, but is still rarely seen outside Australia. Captive yellow-tailed black cockatoos require a large aviary to avoid apathy and poor health. There is some evidence that protein may be more important to them than to other cockatoos, and low protein has been linked with the production of yolkless eggs in captivity. Females in particular enjoy mealworms. They can be placid and tolerate sharing an enclosure with smaller parrots, but do not handle disturbance while breeding. As with other black cockatoos, yellow-tailed black cockatoos are rarely seen in European zoos, since Australia restricted exportation of wildlife in 1959, but birds seized by government agencies in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have been loaned to zoos that are members of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). In 2000, there were pairs of yellow-tailed black cockatoos in Puerto de la Cruz's Loro Parque zoo in Spain and in Rotterdam. Like most species of parrot, the yellow-tailed black cockatoo is protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) with its placement on the Appendix II list of vulnerable species, which makes the import, export, and trade of listed wild-caught animals illegal.
References
Cited texts
External links
yellow-tailed black cockatoo
Articles containing video clips
yellow-tailed black cockatoo
Birds of New South Wales
Birds of Queensland
Birds of South Australia
Birds of Tasmania
Birds of Victoria (state)
Endemic birds of Australia |
423488 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn%20McGrath | Glenn McGrath | Glenn Donald McGrath (; born 9 February 1970) is an Australian former international cricketer whose career spanned 14 years. He was a fast-medium pace bowler and is considered one of the greatest bowlers of all time, and a leading contributor to Australia's domination of world cricket from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s. McGrath was a member of the Australian team that won three consecutive World Cup trophies in a row, winning the 1999 Cricket World Cup, the 2003 Cricket World Cup, and the 2007 Cricket World Cup. In the 2003 final, he took the winning wicket of Zaheer Khan. McGrath was also a member of the team that won the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy.
Known throughout his career for maintaining an accurate line and length, McGrath displayed a consistency that enabled him to be one of the most economical and successful fast bowlers of his time. In terms of total career Test wickets taken by fast bowlers, McGrath is the third-most successful of all time behind James Anderson and Stuart Broad. On the list of all Test bowlers, he is fifth, and no bowler has taken more wickets at a lower average. He has also taken the seventh-highest number of one day international wickets (381) and holds the record for most wickets (71) in the Cricket World Cup. McGrath announced his retirement from Test cricket on 23 December 2006, with his Test career coming to an end after the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney in January 2007, while the 2007 World Cup, which marked the end of his one-day career, saw him win the man-of-the-tournament award for his outstanding bowling, which was instrumental in Australia winning the tournament.
McGrath later played for the Indian Premier League team of the Delhi DareDevils and was one of the competition's most economical bowlers during its first season.
McGrath is the director of MRF Pace Foundation, Chennai, replacing Dennis Lillee, who served for 25 years. He currently serves as president of the McGrath Foundation, a breast cancer support and education charity he founded with his late first wife, Jane.
McGrath was honoured during the seventh annual Bradman Awards in Sydney on 1 November 2012. He was inducted into the ICC Hall of fame in January 2013.
Career
Early years
McGrath was born in Dubbo to Beverly and Kevin McGrath. He grew up in Narromine, New South Wales (NSW), where he first played cricket, and his potential was spotted by Doug Walters. He moved to Sydney to play grade cricket for Sutherland and made his debut for NSW during the 1992–93 season. McGrath capped his rapid rise in the next Australian summer with selection in the Test team after only eight first-class matches.
McGrath's Test debut was against New Zealand at Perth in 1993–1994. In Australia's 1995 Test series victory McGrath took the approach of bouncing the West Indies team, including the bowlers, which had not happened before. In McGrath's biography, Ricky Ponting is quoted as saying:
County cricket in England
McGrath played for Worcestershire in the 2000 English County Championship, proving both successful on the field and popular with the county's supporters. In 14 first-class games he took 80 wickets at 13.21, including an outstanding innings return of 8–41 against Northamptonshire, as well as making his first-ever first-class half-century (55 against Nottinghamshire). He also played a few games for Middlesex in 2004; although accurate, he could manage only nine wickets in four first-class appearances for the county.
Against England (Ashes 2005 and 2006/07)
During the first Test at Lord's in the 2005 Ashes series McGrath became the fourth bowler in history to take 500 Test wickets with the dismissal of Marcus Trescothick. This wicket was also the start of a productive spell of 5–2 that led to England being bowled out for 155. McGrath took 4–29 in the second innings and was named man of the match in a comprehensive Australian victory.
McGrath trod on a cricket ball and injured his ankle the morning before the start of the second Test at Edgbaston and was unable to play in the match, in which England amassed 407 runs in one day against the McGrath-less bowling attack to win by two runs. He was rushed back when not fully fit for the third Test at Old Trafford, where he earned another five-wicket haul in the second innings of a drawn game, batting in a last-wicket partnership with Brett Lee in the last hour of the Test to deny an English victory. He then missed the fourth Test at Trent Bridge, which England won by three wickets, with an elbow injury. McGrath returned for the final Test at The Oval but he and the rest of the Australian team were unable to force a result and the match was drawn, giving England the series win. McGrath's injury problems are seen as a key factor in England regaining the Ashes, as their victories came in matches in which he was absent.
Australia hosted England in the 2006–07 Ashes series and regained the Ashes, beating England 5–0, only the second 5–0 series whitewash in Ashes history (the first time was by the Australian team during the 1920–1921 Ashes Series, and the later 2013–14 Ashes series). Having taken a break from cricket since April 2006, McGrath used the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy to reclaim his spot in Australia's Test XI. He took a six-wicket haul in his comeback innings in the first test at the Gabba to set the tone for the rest of the series, with Australia winning back the Ashes in a record-breaking 15 days of play. McGrath took 21 wickets in the series at an average of 23.90, and scored 10 runs and took a catch in what would be his final test series.
In his biography McGrath wrote:
Retirement
On 23 December 2006, McGrath announced his retirement from Tests. His last Test was the fifth Ashes Test against England in Sydney in January 2007, where he took a wicket with the last ball of his Test career. He retired from all forms of international cricket following the successful 2007 Cricket World Cup, at which he became the leading wicket taker in the history of the World Cup, while also being the tournament's top wicket taker with 26 and being named player of the tournament. He was named in the 'Team of the Tournament' by ESPNCricinfo for the 2007 World Cup. His spell of 3–18 against South Africa was named as the fifth-best ODI bowling performance of the year by ESPNCricinfo voters.
Indian Premier League
McGrath was signed by the Delhi DareDevils for the 2008 Indian Premier League, the first season of the Indian Premier League. He played in 14 matches for the side and was the team's most economic bowler during the competition. He was resigned for the 2009 competition but did not play a match. After playing twice for Delhi in the 2009 Champions League Twenty20, in January 2010 the franchise announced that it had bought out the remaining year of McGrath's contract, effectively bringing his cricketing career to an end.
Playing style
Bowling
McGrath's bowling was not of express pace. Rather, he relied on unerring accuracy and subtle seam movement, which he derived from his high wrist action and lengthy follow-through. His height (195 cm), combined with a high arm action, allowed him to extract extra bounce, which often surprised batsmen. In the later years of his career he developed as a swing bowler.
His uncomplicated method and natural physical fitness were significant factors in the longevity of McGrath's career. In 2004, he became the first Australian fast bowler to play 100 Tests. In the first innings of the ICC Super Series Test match in 2005, McGrath passed Courtney Walsh to become the greatest wicket-taker among fast bowlers in Test history.
McGrath was regarded as one of the best fast bowlers in the world and has had success against every opposition team, in both Test and one-day cricket. He deliberately (and publicly) targeted the opposition's best batsmen prior to a series in an attempt to distract them, a ploy that regularly worked. At the beginning of the Frank Worrell series against the West Indies he stated in interviews before the match that he would dismiss Sherwin Campbell for his 299th wicket, then remove star batsman Brian Lara for his 300th wicket the very next ball. This happened as planned, and he followed this with the dismissal of captain Jimmy Adams to complete a memorable hat-trick. The targeting of opposition batsmen was generally successful; he dismissed Mike Atherton of England 19 times—the most times any batsman has been dismissed by one bowler in cricket history. On the other hand, he targeted Michael Vaughan prior to the 2002/03 Ashes series in Australia, with Vaughan going on to score three centuries at an average greater than 60. He targeted Andrew Strauss in the 2005 series in England, who went on to score two centuries.
He also tended to engage in sledging of opposition batsmen and teams, though it did not always pay off. Before the 2005 Ashes series he predicted a 5–0 whitewash for Australia, and even said that if England won the Ashes he would return to Australia by boat, but England prevailed 2–1. However, this did not dissuade him from making a similar 5–0 prediction for the next Ashes series, in Australia in 2006/07, which turned out to be true. He finished his career as the most successful Test fast bowler and third-highest Test wicket taker.
Fielding
McGrath was not known as a competent outfielder but he had a strong and accurate throwing arm; while not known for his athleticism, he took an exceptional outfield catch on one memorable occasion in 2002 at the Adelaide Oval against England, dismissing English batsman Michael Vaughan from the bowling of Shane Warne, running many metres before leaping into the air and catching the ball with arms outstretched and body horizontal. His captain, Steve Waugh, described the famous catch as "a miracle" and "one of the great catches in history".
Batting
McGrath's batting prowess, in the early phases of his career, was poor; in fact, he scored first-ball ducks (zero runs) on both his Test and One-Day International debuts, and his batting average hovered below 4 for the first few years of his career. Years of patient tutelage from captain and friend Steve Waugh improved this aspect of his game to the point where he scored a Test half-century, which came on 20 November 2004 at the Gabba. His final score in that innings was 61, sharing a last wicket stand of 114 with Jason Gillespie (54*) to hilarity and the acclaim of their team-mates. Nevertheless, McGrath was, for the duration of his career, regarded as a batting 'bunny', although he pushed his average above 7.00 runs/dismissal by the end of his career. In the first World Cricket Tsunami Appeal charity match, he was promoted to bat at number 6 ahead of specialist batsmen Stephen Fleming and Matthew Hayden, but was dismissed first ball trying to slog Muttiah Muralitharan. Towards the end of his international career McGrath, while not scoring many runs himself, became rather more difficult for opposing bowlers to dismiss, being dismissed only once during the 2005 Ashes series. With a contribution of 11 runs in the first innings of the MCG 2005 Boxing Day Test versus South Africa, he stood his ground for 53 deliveries, helping Michael Hussey push the Australian tail to a record tenth-wicket stand against South Africa of 107 runs.
Career best performances
Personal life
Glenn's first wife, Jane Louise (née Steele), was born in the United Kingdom and had worked as a flight attendant before their marriage. Glenn and Jane met at a Hong Kong nightclub called "Joe Bananas" in 1995, and married in 2001. They had two children. Jane McGrath fought recurrent battles with metastatic breast cancer, having been first diagnosed in 1997. On 26 January 2008 (Australia Day) Glenn and Jane McGrath were both made Members of the Order of Australia. Jane McGrath died, aged 42, on 22 June 2008 from complications following cancer surgery.
Glenn McGrath met Sara Leonardi, an interior designer, during the 2009 Indian Premier League. They married at home in Cronulla on 18 November 2010. In April 2011 McGrath put his home on the market for $6 million. Their daughter was born in 2015.
In 2015 McGrath received widespread criticism when it was revealed he had killed a variety of animals during a hunting safari in South Africa. McGrath told Australian Shooter magazine that "I'm keen to get into trophy hunting, no animal in particular, but a big safari in Africa would be great." Photographs of McGrath subsequently appeared on the website of Chipitani Safaris, a game park, showing him crouched beside what looked to be a dead buffalo, two hyenas and the tusks of an elephant. He subsequently expressed his regret.
McGrath Foundation
In 2002 Glenn and Jane founded the McGrath Foundation, a breast cancer support and education charity in Australia, which raises money to fund McGrath Breast Care Nurses in communities right across Australia and increase breast cancer awareness in young women. Since 2007, the third day of the first Test held in Sydney Cricket Ground is named Jane McGrath Day, even if the day is washed out. Following the death of Jane in June 2008, Glenn accepted the voluntary role of chairman of the Board of the McGrath Foundation, and he participates in many activities in support of the Foundation to ensure the fulfilment of its vision. As of April 2016, the McGrath Foundation has placed 110 McGrath Breast Care Nurses around Australia, who have helped support more than 33,000 Australian families.
On 29 December 2018, Ruth Strauss died after a battle with a rare form of lung cancer. In the wake of Ruth's death, former Ashes adversary Andrew Strauss reached out to McGrath who later helped Strauss to found the Ruth Strauss Foundation and secured Day 2 of the Lord's Test as a similar partner event ahead of the 2019 Ashes.
Honours
In 2001, McGrath was one of just twenty-one Australian athletes inducted into the Australian Institute of Sport Best of the Best list.
He was awarded the Allan Border Medal and the Men's Test Player of the Year by CA in 2000. He was also awarded the Men's ODI Player of the Year in 2001.
McGrath was named a Member of the Order of Australia on 26 January (Australia Day) in 2008 for "service to cricket as a player", and along with his wife for "service to the community through the establishment of the McGrath Foundation." In 2008 McGrath was named the NSW Australian of the Year.
McGrath was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2011, and the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in January 2013. He was also inducted into the Australian Hall of Fame by the CA in 2013.
He was named as a bowler in Australia's "greatest-ever ODI team".
In a fan poll conducted by the CA in 2017, he was named in the country's best Ashes XI in the last 40 years.
A statue of McGrath by artist Brett "Mon" Garling was installed at McGrath's home town of Narromine in 2009.
Records
McGrath was twice involved in tenth wicket partnerships which added 100 runs or more, a record matched only by New Zealand batsman Nathan Astle.
At the time of his retirement, McGrath's 7 for 15 against Namibia were the best bowling figures in a World Cup match, and the second best in all ODIs. He also held the record for the most wickets in an edition of the World Cup (26 in 2007) until this was broken by Mitchell Starc in 2019.
After his dismissal for a duck in the fourth test of the 2006–2007 Ashes series, McGrath claimed the record of having scored more ducks in Test cricket than any other Australian cricketer (35 – one more than Shane Warne).
McGrath held the record for dismissing the most batsmen for ducks in Test cricket (104), until it was surpassed by James Anderson in 2021.
Bibliography
: the book includes a postscript by McGrath's late wife Jane.
References
External links
GLENN MCGRATH: LINE AND STRENGTH – THE COMPLETE STORY
1970 births
Living people
Australia One Day International cricketers
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Wisden Cricketers of the Year
ICC World XI One Day International cricketers
Test cricket hat-trick takers
Cricketers at the 1996 Cricket World Cup
Cricketers at the 1999 Cricket World Cup
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Sportspeople from Dubbo
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Man of the Tournament in ODI Worldcup |
423530 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highwayman | Highwayman | A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads. Such criminals operated until the mid- or late 19th century. Highwaywomen, such as Katherine Ferrers, were said to also exist, often dressing as men, especially in fiction.
The first attestation of the word highwayman is from 1617. Euphemisms such as "knights of the road" and "gentlemen of the road" were sometimes used by people interested in romanticizing (with a Robin Hood–esque slant) what was often an especially violent form of stealing. In the 19th-century American West, highwaymen were sometimes known as road agents. In Australia, they were known as bushrangers.
Robbing
The great age of highwaymen was the period from the Restoration in 1660 to the death of Queen Anne in 1714. Some of them are known to have been disbanded soldiers and even officers of the English Civil War and French wars. What favoured them most was the lack of governance and absence of a police force: parish constables were almost wholly ineffective and commonplace detection and arrest were very difficult. Most of the highwaymen held up travellers and took their money. Some had channels by which they could dispose of bills of exchange. Others had a 'racket' on the road transport of an extensive district; carriers regularly paid them a ransom to go unmolested.
They often attacked coaches for their lack of protection, including public stagecoaches; the postboys who carried the mail were also frequently held up. The demand to "Stand and deliver!" (sometimes in forms such as "Stand and deliver your purse!" "Stand and deliver your money!") was in use from the 17th century to the 19th century:
The phrase "Your money or your life!" is mentioned in trial reports from the mid-18th century:
Victims of highwaymen included the Prime Minister Lord North, who wrote in 1774: "I was robbed last night as I expected, our loss was not great, but as the postilion did not stop immediately one of the two highwaymen fired at him (They had guns at the time) – It was at the end of Gunnersbury Lane." Horace Walpole, who was shot at in Hyde Park, wrote that "One is forced to travel, even at noon, as if one was going to battle." During this period, crime was rife and encounters with highwaymen or women could be bloody if the victim attempted to resist. The historian Roy Porter described the use of direct, physical action as a hallmark of public and political life: "From the rough-house of the crowd to the dragoons' musket volley, violence was as English as plum pudding. Force was used not just criminally, but as a matter of routine to achieve social and political goals, smudging hard-and-fast distinctions between the worlds of criminality and politics... Highwaymen were romanticized, with a hidden irony, as 'gentlemen of the road."
Robbers as heroes
There is a long history of treating highway robbers as heroes. Originally, they were admired by many as bold men who confronted their victims face-to-face and were ready to fight for what they wanted. Medieval outlaw Robin Hood is regarded as an English folk hero. Later robber heroes included the Cavalier highwayman James Hind, the French-born gentleman highwayman Claude Du Vall, John Nevison, Dick Turpin, Sixteen String Jack, William Plunkett and his partner the "Gentleman Highwayman" James MacLaine, the Slovak Juraj Jánošík, and Indians including Kayamkulam Kochunni, Veerappan, and Phoolan Devi. In the same way, the Puerto Rican pirate Roberto Cofresí also came to be venerated as a hero.
British-ruled Ireland
In the 17th- through early-19th-century Ireland, acts of robbery were often part of a tradition of Irish resistance to British authority and the Protestant ascendancy in Ireland. From the mid-17th century onwards, highwaymen who harassed the British authorities were known as 'tories' (from Irish tóraidhe, raider; tóraí in modern spelling). Later in the century, they became known as rapparees. Their ranks included James Freney, Redmond O'Hanlon, Willy Brennan, and Jeremiah Grant.
Dangerous places
English highwaymen often laid in wait on the main roads radiating from London. They usually chose lonely areas of heathland or woodland. Hounslow Heath was a favourite haunt: it was crossed by the roads to Bath and Exeter. Bagshot Heath in Surrey was another dangerous place on the road to Exeter. One of the most notorious places in England was Shooter's Hill on the Great Dover Road. Finchley Common, on the Great North Road, was nearly as bad.
To the south of London, highwaymen sought to attack wealthy travellers on the roads leading to and from the Channel ports and aristocratic areas like Epsom, which became a fashionable spa town in 1620, and Banstead Downs where horse races and sporting events became popular with the elite from 1625. Later in the 18th century the road from London to Reigate and Brighton through Sutton attracted highwaymen. Commons and heaths considered to be dangerous included Blackheath, Putney Heath, Streatham Common, Mitcham Common, Thornton Heath – also the site of a gallows known as "Hangman's Acre" or "Gallows Green" – Sutton Common, Banstead Downs and Reigate Heath.
During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, highwaymen in Hyde Park were sufficiently common for King William III to have the route between St James's Palace and Kensington Palace (Rotten Row) lit at night with oil lamps as a precaution against them. This made it the first artificially lit highway in Britain.
Executions
The penalty for robbery with violence was hanging, and most notorious English highwaymen ended on the gallows. The chief place of execution for London and Middlesex was Tyburn Tree. Highwaymen whose lives ended there include Claude Du Vall, James MacLaine, and Sixteen-string Jack. Highwaymen who went to the gallows laughing and joking, or at least showing no fear, are said to have been admired by many of the people who came to watch.
Decline
During the 18th century French rural roads were generally safer from highwaymen than those of England, an advantage credited by the historian Alexis de Tocqueville to the existence of a uniformed and disciplined mounted constabulary known as the Maréchaussée. In England this force was often confused with the regular army and as such cited as an instrument of royal tyranny not to be imitated.
In England the causes of the decline are more controversial. After about 1815, mounted robbers are recorded only rarely, the last recorded robbery by a mounted highwayman having occurred in 1831. The decline in highwayman activity also occurred during the period in which repeating handguns, notably the pepper-box and the percussion revolver, became increasingly available and affordable to the average citizen. The development of the railways is sometimes cited as a factor, but highwaymen were already obsolete before the railway network was built. The expansion of the system of turnpikes, manned and gated toll-roads, made it all but impossible for a highwayman to escape notice while making his getaway, but he could easily avoid such systems and use other roads, almost all of which outside the cities were flanked by open country.
Cities such as London were becoming much better policed: in 1805 a body of mounted police began to patrol the districts around the city at night. London was growing rapidly, and some of the most dangerous open spaces near the city, such as Finchley Common, were being covered with buildings. However, this only moved the robbers' operating area further out, to the new exterior of an expanded city, and does not therefore explain decline. A greater use of banknotes, more traceable than gold coins, also made life more difficult for robbers, but the Inclosure Act of 1773 was followed by a sharp decline in highway robberies; stone walls falling over the open range like a net, confined the escaping highwaymen to the roads themselves, which now had walls on both sides and were better patrolled.
The dramatic population increase which began with the Industrial Revolution also meant, quite simply, that there were more eyes around, and the concept of remote place became a thing of the past in England.
Outside Anglophone countries
Greece
The bandits in Greece under Ottoman rule were the Klephts (κλέφτες), Greeks who had taken refuge in the inaccessible mountains. The klephts, who acted as a guerilla force, were instrumental in the Greek War of Independence.
Kingdom of Hungary
The highwaymen of the 17th- to 19th-century Kingdom of Hungary were the betyárs (Slovak: zbojník, pl. zbojníci). Until the 1830s they were mainly simply regarded as criminals but an increasing public appetite for betyar songs, ballads and stories gradually gave a romantic image to these armed and usually mounted robbers. Several of the betyárs have become legendary figures who in the public mind fought for social justice. Hungarian betyárs included Sándor Rózsa (), Jóska Sobri, Márton Vidróczki, Jóska Savanyú. Juraj Jánošík (), who was born and operated in Upper Hungary (now Slovakia), is still regarded as the Slovak version of Robin Hood.
India
The Indian Subcontinent has had a long and documented history of organised robbery for millennia. These included the Thuggees, a quasi-religious group that robbed travellers on Indian roads until the cult was systematically eradicated in the mid-1800s by British colonial administrators. Thugees would befriend large road caravans and gain their confidence, before strangling them to death and robbing their valuables. According to some estimates the Thuggees murdered a million people between 1740 and 1840. More generally, armed bands known colloquially as "dacoits" have long wreaked havoc on many parts of the country. In recent times this has often served as a way to fund various regional and political insurgencies that includes the Maoist Naxalite movement. Kayamkulam Kochunni was also a famed highwayman who was active in Central Travancore in the early 19th century. Along with his close friend Ithikkarappkki from the nearby Ithikkara village, he is said to have stolen from the rich and given to the poor. With the help of an Ezhava warrior called Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker, Kochunni was arrested and sent to Poojappura Central Jail. Legends of his works are compiled in folklore and are still read and heard today.
The Balkans and eastern Europe
The bandits in Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and Bulgaria under Ottoman rule were the Hajduks (Hajduci, Хајдуци, Хайдути), rebels who opposed Ottoman rule and acted as a guerilla force, also instrumental in the many wars against the Ottomans and especially the Serbian revolution. Serbian and Croatian refugees in Austro-Hungarian (and Habsburg) lands were also part of the Uskoci. Notable freedom fighters include Starina Novak, a notable outlaw was Jovo Stanisavljević Čaruga.
In medieval Vlachia, Moldavia, Transylvania, and Ukraine, the Haiduks (Romanian – Haiduci, Ukrainian – Гайдуки, Haiduky) were bandits and deserters who lived in forests and robbed local Boyars or other travelers along roads. Sometimes they would help the poor peasants. In the 1800s, betyárs became common in Hungary.
Literature and popular culture
In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 Falstaff is a highwayman, and part of the action of the play concerns a robbery committed by him and his companions. Another highwayman in English drama is Captain Macheath, hero of John Gay's 18th-century ballad opera The Beggar's Opera. The legend of Dick Turpin was significantly boosted by Rookwood (1834), in which a heavily fictionalised Turpin is one of the main characters. Alfred Noyes's narrative poem "The Highwayman" has been immensely popular ever since its publication in 1906.
From the early 18th century, collections of short stories of highwaymen and other notorious criminals became very popular. The earliest of these is Captain Alexander Smith's Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen (1714). Some later collections of this type had the words The Newgate Calendar in their titles and this has become a general name for this kind of publication.
In the later 19th century, highwaymen such as Dick Turpin were the heroes of a number of penny dreadfuls, stories for boys published in serial form. In the 20th century the handsome highwayman became a stock character in historical love romances, including books by Baroness Orczy and Georgette Heyer.
Sir Walter Scott's romance The Heart of Midlothian (1818) recounts the heroine waylaid by highwaymen while travelling from Scotland to London.
Ronia, the Robber's Daughter (1981) is a children's fantasy book by Astrid Lindgren, which portrays the adventures of Ronia, the daughter of the leader of a gang of highwaymen.
Comics
The Belgian comics series by Turk and De Groot is a gag-a-day series about Robin Hood's attempts at robbing travellers in the forest.
The Dutch comics series Gilles de Geus by Hanco Kolk and Peter de Wit was originally a gag-a-day about a failed highwayman called Gilles, but the character later evolved into a resistance fighter with the Geuzen against the Spanish army.
Ithikkara Pakki, a graphic children's story book about the Indian highwayman Ithikkara Pakki, was published in April 2010 in Malayalam. The life of the Indian highwayman Kayamkulam Kochunni was adapted as a comic by Radha M. Nair in the 794th issue of the Indian comic book series, Amar Chitra Katha.
Music
There were many broadsheet ballads about highwaymen; these were often written to be sold on the occasion of a famous robber's execution. A number of highwaymen ballads have remained current in oral tradition in England and Ireland.
The traditional Irish song "Whiskey in the Jar" tells the story of an Irish highwayman who robs an army captain and includes the lines "I first produced me pistol, then I drew me rapier. Said 'Stand and deliver, for you are a bold deceiver'." The hit single version recorded in 1973 by Irish rock band Thin Lizzy renders this last line "I said 'Stand-oh and deliver, or the devil he may take ya'."
The traditional Irish song "The Newry Highwayman" recounts the deeds and death of a highwayman who robbed "the lords and ladies bright". The traditional Irish song "Brennan on the Moor" describes an escapade of the "bold, undaunted robber". Adam and the Ants had a number one song for five weeks in 1981 in the UK with "Stand and Deliver". The video featured Adam Ant as an English highwayman.
The contemporary folk song "On the Road to Fairfax County" by David Massengill, recorded by The Roches and by Joan Baez, recounts a romantic encounter between a highwayman and his female victim. In the end, the highwayman is hanged over the objections of his victim.
Musician Jimmy Webb penned and recorded a song entitled "Highwayman" in 1977 about a soul with incarnations in four different places in time and history, a highwayman, a sailor, a construction worker on the Hoover Dam, and finally as a star ship captain. Glen Campbell recorded a version of the song in 1978, but the most popular incarnation of the song was recorded by Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash in 1984, who as a group called themselves The Highwaymen.
The Canadian singer Loreena McKennit adapted the narrative poem, "The Highwayman" written by Alfred Noyes, as a song by the same title in her 1997 album The Book of Secrets.
Cinema and television
The Carry On films included a highwayman spoof in Carry On Dick (1974). Monty Python sent up the highwayman legends in the Dennis Moore sketch in Episode 37 of Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which John Cleese played the titular criminal who stole only lupins. In a linking sketch in an episode of Not the Nine O'Clock News a highwayman holds up a stagecoach with pistols – in order to wash the coach in exchange for small monies in the manner of a modern-day unsolicited car window washer in traffic. In Blackadder the Third, Mr. E. Blackadder turns highwayman in the episode "Amy and Amiability". In the British children's television series Dick Turpin, starring Richard O'Sullivan, the highwayman was depicted as an 18th-century Robin Hood figure. Additionally the actor Mathew Baynton played Dick Turpin in Horrible Histories. A singing highwayman appears in the fourth episode of the animated mini-series, Over the Garden Wall, Songs of the Dark Lantern.
The highwayman known as Juraj Jánošík (1688–1713) became a hero of many folk legends in the Slovak, Czech, and Polish cultures by the 19th century and hundreds of literary works about him have since been published. The first Slovak feature film was Jánošík, made in 1921, followed by seven more Slovak and Polish films about him.
Curro Jiménez, a Spanish TV series which aired from 1976 to 1979, starred a group of 19th-century highwaymen or bandoleros in the mountains of Ronda in the south of Spain.
Ronia, the Robber's Daughter (aka Ronja Robbersdaughter in the US) is a 1984 Swedish fantasy film, based on the 1981 novel of the same title by Astrid Lindgren, and narrating the adventures of Ronia, the daughter of the leader of a gang of highwaymen.
Ronja, the Robber's Daughter (Japanese: 山賊の娘ローニャ, Hepburn: Sanzoku no Musume Rōnya) is a Japanese computer-animated television series, also based on Lindgren's novel Ronia, the Robber's Daughter, and directed and storyboarded by Gorō Miyazaki.
The lives of numerous Indian highwaymen including Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker, Ithikkara Pakki, Jambulingam Nadar, Kayamkulam Kochunni and Papadu have been adapted for cinema and television multiple times.
Season two, episode 20, of Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, the main villain (voiced by James Marsters) disguises himself as a highwayman.
Films
The Mark of Zorro (1920)
Dick Turpin (1925)
Dick Turpin (1933)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
The Night Riders (1939)
Frontier Marshal (1939)
My Little Chickadee (1940)
Virginia City (1940)
The Mark of Zorro (1940)
The Wicked Lady (1945)
The Loves of Carmen (1948)
The Lady and the Bandit (1951)
Bend of the River (1952)
Son of Paleface (1952)
The King's Thief (1955)
The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965)
Kayamkulam Kochunni (1966)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Robin Hood (1973)
Carry On Dick (1974)
The Mark of Zorro (1974)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Kaayamkulam Kochunniyude Makan (1976)
Joseph Andrews (1977)
Vellayani Paramu (1979)
Ronia, the Robber's Daughter (1981)
Jambulingam (1982)
The Wicked Lady (1983)
The Deceivers (1988)
The Lady and the Highwayman (1989)
Plunkett & Macleane (1999)
Kayamkulam Kochunni (2018)
The Highwaymen (2019)
Video games
In Fable II, Highwaymen appear as an elite type of enemy which works alongside bandits and makes use of speed and agility over brute strength. It is also possible for players to dress as Highwaymen. There is an enemy type in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim called the "bandit highwayman" that acts as one of the higher-level bandit enemies. In World of Warcraft one can encounter the Defias Highwaymen, the strongest members of the Defias Brotherhood. In Darkest Dungeon the Highwayman is a class of hero who wields a dirk and flintlock to fight. In Runescape, highwaymen attack lower-leveled players on a route between two cities. In Bushido Blade 2 there is a playable character named Highwayman who is dressed in Victorian clothing and represents the hero archetype. In Bloodborne many articles of clothing obtained by "The Hunter" are inspired by Highwaymen attire.
See also
List of highwaymen
Brigandage
Bushranger
Dacoity
Hajduk
Mail robbery
Marauder (disambiguation)
Piracy
Road agent (disambiguation)
Social bandits
Thuggees
References
Further reading
Ash, Russell (1970). Highwaymen, Shire Publications, ; revised edition (1994)
Billett, Michael (1997). Highwaymen and Outlaws, Weidenfeld Military,
Brandon, David (2004). Stand and Deliver! A History of Highway Robbery, Sutton Publishing,
Dunford, Stephen (2000). The Irish Highwaymen, Merlin Publishing,
Evans, Hilary & Mary (1997). Hero on a Stolen Horse: Highwayman and His Brothers-in-arms – The Bandit and the Bushranger, Muller,
Haining, Peter (1991). The English Highwayman: A Legend Unmasked, Robert Hale,
Harper, Charles George (1908). Half-hours with the Highwaymen: picturesque biographies and traditions of the "knights of the road", Chapman & Hall. Online edition, via Internet Archive.
Hobsbawm, Eric (1969). Bandits, Delacorte Press; Revised edition (2000).
Koliopoulos, John S (1987). Brigands with a Cause, Brigandage and Irredentism in Modern Greece 1821–1912. Clarendon Press.
Liapi, Lena (2019). "Roguery in Print: Crime and Culture in Early Modern London" Boydell & Brewer.
Maxwell, Gordon S (1994). Highwayman's Heath: Story in Fact and Fiction of Hounslow Heath in Middlesex , Heritage Publications, Hounslow Leisure Services,
Newark, Peter (1988). Crimson Book of Highwaymen, Olympic Marketing Corp,
Pringle, Patrick (1951). Stand and Deliver: The Story of the Highwaymen, Museum Press, ASIN B0000CHVTK
Seal, Graham (1996). The Outlaw Legend: a cultural tradition in Britain, America and Australia, Cambridge University Press, (hbk), (pbk)
Sharpe, James (2005). Dick Turpin: The Myth of the English Highwayman, Profile Books,
Spraggs, Gillian (2001). Outlaws and Highwaymen: The Cult of the Robber in England from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century, Pimlico,
Sugden, John and Philip (2015). The Thief of Hearts: Claude Duval and the Gentleman Highwayman in Fact and Fiction, Forty Steps,
External links
The Heroic Outlaw in Irish Folklore and Popular Literature
Primary source book from 1674 on aspects of Highwaymen, their customs and their crimes - Jackson's Recantation; or, the Life and Death of the Notorious Highwayman |
423546 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumble%20Fish | Rumble Fish | Rumble Fish is a 1983 American drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It is based on the 1975 novel Rumble Fish by S. E. Hinton, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Coppola. The film stars Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Vincent Spano, Diane Lane, Diana Scarwid, Nicolas Cage, Chris Penn, and Dennis Hopper.
The film centers on the relationship between a character called the Motorcycle Boy (Rourke), a revered former gang leader wishing to live a more peaceful life, and his younger brother, Rusty James (Dillon), a teenaged hoodlum who aspires to become as feared as his brother.
Coppola wrote the screenplay for the film with Hinton on his days off from shooting The Outsiders. He made the films back-to-back, retaining much of the same cast and crew, particularly Matt Dillon and Diane Lane. Rumble Fish is dedicated to Coppola's brother August.
The film is notable for its avant-garde style with a film noir feel, shot on stark high-contrast black-and-white film, using the spherical cinematographic process with allusions to French New Wave cinema and German Expressionism. Rumble Fish features an experimental score by Stewart Copeland, drummer of the musical group the Police, who used a Musync, a new device at the time.
Plot
Set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the film begins in a diner called Benny's Billiards, where local tough guy Rusty James is told by Midget that rival group leader Biff Wilcox wants to meet him that night in an abandoned garage lot for a fight. Accepting the challenge, Rusty James then talks with his friends: the wily Smokey, loyal B.J., and tall, nerdy Steve; who all have a different take on the forthcoming fight. Steve mentions that Rusty James' older brother, "The Motorcycle Boy," would not be pleased with the fight as he had previously created a truce forbidding gang fights, or "rumbles." Rusty James dismisses him, saying that the Motorcycle Boy (whose real name is never revealed) has been gone for two months, leaving without explanation or promise of return.
Rusty James visits his girlfriend, Patty, then meets his cadre and walks to the abandoned garage lot, where Biff and his buddies suddenly appear. The two battle, with the fight ending when Rusty James disarms Biff and beats him almost unconscious. The Motorcycle Boy arrives dramatically on his motorcycle, and his appearance distracts Rusty James, who is slashed by Biff in the side with a shard of glass. Incensed, the Motorcycle Boy sends his motorcycle flying into Biff. The Motorcycle Boy and Steve take Rusty James home (past Officer Patterson, a street cop who's long hated the Motorcycle Boy) and nurse him to health through the night. Steve and the injured Rusty James talk about how the Motorcycle Boy is 21 years old, colorblind, partially deaf, and noticeably aloof; the last trait causing many to believe he is insane.
The Motorcycle Boy and Rusty James share the next evening with their alcoholic, welfare-dependent father, who says that the Motorcycle Boy takes after his mother whereas, it is implied, Rusty James takes after him. Things start to go wrong for Rusty James, and he's eventually kicked out of school after his frequent fights. Despite Rusty James's desire to resume gang activity, the Motorcycle Boy implies that he has no interest in doing so. Shortly after, Rusty James goes to a party at a lakeside cabin hosted by Smokey, where he has sex with another girl, causing Patty to break up with him. At Benny's sometime later, Rusty James sees that Patty and Smokey have begun dating, and Smokey confesses that he set up the entire party so that Rusty James would cheat on Patty, driving her to leave him for Smokey.
The two brothers and Steve head across the river one night to a strip of bars, where Rusty James enjoys briefly forgetting his troubles. The Motorcycle Boy mentions that he located their long-lost mother during his recent trip while she was with a movie producer, which took him to California, although he did not reach the ocean. Later, Steve and Rusty James wander drunkenly home, and are attacked by thugs, but both are saved by the Motorcycle Boy. As he nurses Rusty James again, the Motorcycle Boy tells him that the gang life and the rumbles he yearns for and idolizes are not what he believes them to be. Steve calls the Motorcycle Boy crazy, a claim which the Motorcycle Boy does not deny, further prompting Rusty James to believe his brother is insane, just like his runaway mother supposedly was.
Rusty James meets up with the Motorcycle Boy the next day in a pet store, where the latter is strangely fascinated with the Siamese fighting fish, which he refers to as "rumble fish." Officer Patterson suspects they will try to rob the store. The brothers leave and meet their father, who explains to Rusty James that, contrary to popular belief, neither his mother nor brother are crazy, but rather they were both born with an acute perception. The brothers go for a motorcycle ride through the city and arrive at the Pet Store, where the Motorcycle Boy breaks in and starts to set the animals loose. Rusty James makes a last-gasp effort to convince his brother to reunite with him, but the Motorcycle Boy refuses, explaining that the differences between them are too great for them to ever have the life Rusty James speaks of. The Motorcycle Boy takes the fish and rushes to free them in the river, but is fatally shot by Officer Patterson before he can. Rusty James, after hearing the gunshot, finishes his brother's last attempt while a large crowd of people converges on his body.
Rusty James finally reaches the Pacific Ocean (something the Motorcycle Boy failed to do) and enjoys the shining sun and flocks of birds flying around the beach. He also tries to forget what happened to his brother.
Cast
Matt Dillon as Rusty James
Mickey Rourke as The Motorcycle Boy
Diane Lane as Patty
Dennis Hopper as Father
Diana Scarwid as Cassandra
Vincent Spano as Steve
Nicolas Cage as "Smokey"
Chris Penn as B.J. Jackson
Larry Fishburne as "Midget"
William Smith as Officer Patterson
Glenn Withrow as Biff Wilcox
Tom Waits as Benny, The Barkeeper
Michael Higgins as Principal Harrigan
Sofia Coppola as Donna, Patty's Sister
S. E. Hinton as Prostitute (cameo)
Production
Development and writing
Francis Ford Coppola was drawn to S. E. Hinton's novel Rumble Fish because of the strong personal identification he had with the subject matter — a younger brother who hero-worships an older, intellectually superior brother, which mirrored the relationship between Coppola and his brother, August. A dedication to August appears as the film's final end credit. The director said that he "started to use Rumble Fish as my carrot for what I promised myself when I finished The Outsiders". Halfway through the production of The Outsiders, Coppola decided that he wanted to retain the same production team, stay in Tulsa, and shoot Rumble Fish right after The Outsiders. He wrote the screenplay for Rumble Fish with Hinton on Sundays, their day off from shooting The Outsiders.
Pre-production
Warner Bros. was not happy with an early cut of The Outsiders and passed on distributing Rumble Fish. Despite the lack of financing, Coppola recorded the film on video, in its entirety, during two weeks of rehearsals in a former school gymnasium and afterwards was able to show the cast and crew a rough draft of the film. To get Rourke into the mindset of his character, Coppola gave him books written by Albert Camus and a biography of Napoleon. The Motorcycle Boy's look was patterned after Camus complete with trademark cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth — taken from a photograph of the author that Rourke used as a visual handle. Rourke remembers that he approached his character as "an actor who no longer finds his work interesting".
Coppola hired Michael Smuin, a choreographer and co-director of the San Francisco Ballet, to stage the fight scene between Rusty James and Biff Wilcox because he liked the way he choreographed violence. He asked Smuin to include specific visual elements: a motorcycle, broken glass, knives, gushing water and blood. The choreographer spent a week designing the sequence. Smuin also staged the street dance between Rourke and Diana Scarwid, modeling it after one in Picnic featuring William Holden and Kim Novak.
Before filming started, Coppola ran regular screenings of old films during the evenings to familiarize the cast, and in particular the crew, with his visual concept for Rumble Fish. Most notably, Coppola showed Anatole Litvak's Decision Before Dawn, the inspiration for the film's smoky look, F. W. Murnau's The Last Laugh to show Matt Dillon how silent actor Emil Jennings used body language to convey emotions, and Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which became Rumble Fish'''s "stylistic prototype". Coppola's extensive use of shadows, oblique angles, exaggerated compositions, and an abundance of smoke and fog are all hallmarks of these German Expressionist films. Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi, shot mainly in time-lapse photography, motivated Coppola to use this technique to animate the sky in his own film.
Filming
Six weeks into production, Coppola made a deal with Universal Studios and principal photography began on July 12, 1982 with the director declaring, "Rumble Fish will be to The Outsiders what Apocalypse Now was to The Godfather." He shot in deserted areas at the edge of Tulsa with many scenes captured via a hand-held camera in order to make the audience feel uneasy. He also had shadows painted on the walls of the sets to make them look ominous. In the dream sequence where Rusty James floats outside of his body Matt Dillon wore a body mold which was moved by an articulated arm and also flown on wires.
To mix the black-and-white footage of Rusty James and the Motorcycle Boy in the pet store looking at the Siamese fighting fish in color, Burum shot the actors in black and white and then projected that footage on a rear projection screen. They put the fish tank in front of it with the tropical fish and shot it all with color film. Filming finished by mid-September 1982, on schedule and on budget.
The film is notable for its avant-garde style, shot on stark high-contrast black-and-white film, using the spherical cinematographic process with allusions to French New Wave cinema. The striking black-and-white photography of the film's cinematographer, Stephen H. Burum, lies in two main sources: the films of Orson Welles and German cinema of the 1920s. When the film was in its pre-production phase, Coppola asked Burum how he wanted to film it and they agreed that it might be the only chance they were ever going to have to make a black-and-white film.
Music
Soundtrack
Coppola envisioned a largely experimental score to complement his images. He began to devise a mainly percussive soundtrack to symbolize the idea of time running out. As Coppola worked on it, he realized that he needed help from a professional musician. He asked Stewart Copeland, then drummer of the musical group The Police, to improvise a rhythm track. Coppola soon concluded that Copeland was a far superior composer and let him take over. Copeland recorded street sounds of Tulsa and mixed them into the soundtrack with the use of Musync—a music and tempo editing hardware and software system invented by Robert Randles (subsequently nominated for an Oscar for Scientific Achievement), to modify the tempo of his compositions and synchronize them with the action in the film.
An edited version of the song "Don't Box Me In", a collaboration between Copeland and singer/songwriter Stan Ridgway, was released as a single and enjoyed significant radio airplay.
All songs written by Stewart Copeland, except where noted.
"Don't Box Me In" (Copeland, Stan Ridgway) – 4:40
"Tulsa Tango" – 3:42
"Our Mother Is Alive" – 4:16
"Party at Someone Else's Place" – 2:25
"Biff Gets Stomped by Rusty James" – 2:27
"Brothers on Wheels" – 4:20
"West Tulsa Story" – 3:59
"Tulsa Rags" – 1:39
"Father on the Stairs" – 3:01
"Hostile Bridge to Benny's" – 1:53
"Your Mother Is Not Crazy" – 2:48
"Personal Midget/Cain's Ballroom" – 5:55
"Motorboy's Fate" – 2:03
Differences from the novel
Coppola did not employ the flashback structure of the novel. He also removed a few passages from the novel that further established Steve and Rusty James' relationship in order to focus more on the brothers' relationship.
In the novel, Rusty James and the motorcycle boy are three years younger than they are portrayed in the film. In the novel, the Motorcycle Boy is only 17 whereas in the film, he is 21.
In the film, the Motorcycle Boy is more attentive and paternal toward Rusty James than he is in the novel.
In the novel, Rusty James uses a bike chain to disarm Biff, whereas in the film he uses a sweater.
In the novel Biff slashes Rusty James with a knife rather than a pane of glass and Motorcycle Boy breaks Biff's wrist instead of ramming him with his motorcycle.
The Motorcycle Boy's self-destructive behavior at the film's conclusion is less motivated in the film than in the novel.
In the novel, Rusty James gets arrested after Motorcycle Boy is shot and never makes the promise to ride the motorcycle.
The film ends with Rusty James arriving at the ocean on a motorcycle while the novel ends with Rusty James meeting Steve in California five years after Motorcycle Boy's death.
Themes
The theme of time passing faster than the characters realize is conveyed through time-lapse photography of clouds racing across the sky and numerous shots of clocks. The black-and-white photography was meant to convey the Motorcycle Boy's color blindness while also evoking film noir through frequent use of oblique angles, exaggerated compositions, dark alleys, and foggy streets.
Release
Theatrical
Coppola utilized many new filmmaking techniques never before used in the production of a commercial motion picture, and the film was well received on the independent circuit. At the San Sebastián International Film Festival, it won the International Critics' Big Award. At its world premiere at the New York Film Festival however, there were several walkouts and at the end of the screening, boos and catcalls. Former head of production at Paramount Pictures Michael Daly remembers legendary producer Robert Evans' reaction to Coppola's film, "Evans went to see Rumble Fish, and he remembers being shaken by how far Coppola had strayed from Hollywood. Evans says, 'I was scared. I couldn't understand any of it.'"
Home media
The film was first released on VHS in 1984 and on DVD on September 9, 1998 with no extra material. A special edition was released on September 13, 2005 with an audio commentary by Coppola, six deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, a look at how Copeland's score was created and the "Don't Box Me In" music video. In August 2012, The Masters of Cinema Series released a special Blu-ray edition of the film (and accompanying Steelbook edition) in the UK. In April 2017, the Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray and DVD. Chuck Bowen, in a review of the blu-ray edition, referred to Rumble Fish as one "of Francis Ford Coppola’s most underrated and deeply felt films." He suggests that with the blu-ray edition, it "receives a gorgeously ephemeral restoration that should hopefully jump-start its reevaluation as an essential American work."
Reception
Box officeRumble Fish was released on October 8, 1983 and it only grossed $18,985 on its opening weekend, playing in one theater. Its widest release was in 296 theaters and it was a box office disaster, grossing only $2.5 million domestically. Its estimated budget was $10 million; a large sum for the time.
Critical response
On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Rumble Fish holds an approval rating of 76% based on 37 reviews, with an average score of 6.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Rumble Fish frustrates even as it intrigues, but director Francis Ford Coppola's strong visual style helps compensate for a certain narrative stasis." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 63 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."
Jay Scott wrote for The Globe and Mail, "Francis Coppola, bless his theatrical soul, may have the commercial sense of a newt, but he has the heart of a revolutionary, and the talent of a great artist." Jack Kroll in his review for Newsweek stated: "Rumble Fish is a brilliant tone poem ... Rourke's Motorcycle Boy is really a young god with a mortal wound, a slippery assignment Rourke handles with a fierce delicacy.". David Thomson has written that Rumble Fish is "maybe the most satisfying film Coppola made after Apocalypse Now". Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, filmmaker Sofia Coppola, famously named it as her favorite among her father's movies in an interview with The Guardian. Coppola himself has variously called it his favorite of his own movies and as among his three favorites, saying it "was the film I really wanted to make".
Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote, "I thought Rumble Fish was offbeat, daring, and utterly original. Who but Coppola could make this film? And, of course, who but Coppola would want to?" In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote that "the film is so furiously overloaded, so crammed with extravagant touches, that any hint of a central thread is obscured". Gary Arnold in The Washington Post wrote, "It's virtually impossible to be drawn into the characters' identities and conflicts at even an introductory, rudimentary level, and the rackety distraction of an obtrusive experimental score ... frequently makes it impossible to comprehend mere dialogue". Time magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, "In one sense, then, Rumble Fish is Coppola's professional suicide note to the movie industry, a warning against employing him to find the golden gross. No doubt: this is his most baroque and self-indulgent film. It may also be his bravest." David Denby in New York and Andrew Sarris in The Village Voice gave the film harsh reviews.
AccoladesRumble Fish won the highest prize in the 32nd San Sebastián International Film Festival, the International Critics' Big Award.
References
Further reading
Chown, Jeffrey. Hollywood Auteur: Francis Coppola. New York: Praeger, 1988.
Cowie, Peter. Coppola. Suffolk: St. Edmundsbury, 1989.
A Conversation With Stephen Burum, ASC. International Cinematographers Guild.
Goodwin, Michael, and Naomi Wise. On the Edge: The Life and Times of Francis Coppola''. New York: Morrow, 1989.
Jenkins, Chadwick. "The Ineluctability of Time in Coppola Drama, 'Rumble Fish'." PopMatters, June 20, 2017.
External links
Rumble Fish: Lose Yourself an essay by Glenn Kenny at the Criterion Collection
1983 films
1980s teen drama films
American black-and-white films
American gang films
American teen drama films
American Zoetrope films
Films scored by Stewart Copeland
Films about brothers
Films based on American novels
Films directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Films set in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Films set in Oklahoma
Films shot in Oklahoma
Films partially in color
Films with screenplays by Francis Ford Coppola
Films produced by Fred Roos
Southern Gothic films
Universal Pictures films
1983 drama films
1980s English-language films
1980s American films |
423571 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%20Birch%20%28missionary%29 | John Birch (missionary) | John Morrison Birch (May 28, 1918 – August 25, 1945) was a United States Army Air Forces military intelligence captain, OSS field agent in China during World War II, as well as former Baptist minister and missionary. He was killed in a confrontation with Chinese Communist soldiers during an assignment he was ordered on by the OSS, ten days after the war ended. Birch was posthumously awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal.
The John Birch Society (JBS), an American anti-communist organization, was named in his memory by Robert H. W. Welch Jr. in 1958. Welch considered Birch to be a martyr and the first casualty of the Cold War. Birch's parents joined the JBS as honorary life members.
Early life
Birch was born to Presbyterian missionaries in Landour, a hill station in the Himalayas now in the northern India state of Uttarakhand, at the time in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. His parents, Ethel (Ellis) and George S. Birch who were college graduates, were on a three-year period missionary service in the country, working under Sam Higginbottom. In 1920, when he was two, the family left India and returned to the United States due to his father having malaria. John Birch was the oldest of seven children.
In the States, his parents left the Presbyterian Church, and Birch was raised and baptized in the Fundamental Baptist tradition. He lived in Vineland, New Jersey and Crystal Springs and Macon, Georgia. He graduated from Gore High School at the head of his class in Chattooga County,
Georgia. Afterwards, he enrolled at Georgia Baptist–affiliated Mercer University in Macon. "He was always an angry young man, always a zealot", said a classmate many years later, saying that Birch "felt he was called to defend the faith, and he alone knew what it was." In his senior year, he joined a group of students who opposed liberal tendencies at the university. They brought charges of "heresy" against some professors, such as holding the theory of evolution, and the university held a day-long hearing in the chapel. Defenders of the professors posted a sign on the door: "Do Not Enter: Spanish Inquisition in Progress". The charges were dismissed, but the incident made Birch and the group unpopular on campus, and he later regretted the "teacher episode." He graduated in 1939 magna cum laude with the highest grade average in his class.
Missionary work
Birch decided to become a missionary when he was twelve years old. After college, he enrolled in J. Frank Norris' Fundamental Baptist Bible Institute in Fort Worth, Texas. Norris had visited Shanghai in 1939, two years after the Japanese invasion had started the Second Sino-Japanese War, and returned full of enthusiasm for “the marvelous opportunity to proclaim Gospel and win souls.” Birch, who was eager to finish his studies and had studied many of the topics before, completed the two-year curriculum in one year. He graduated at the head of his class in June 1940 and prepared to join Shanghai mission of Norris' World Fundamental Baptist Missionary Fellowship (now the World Baptist Fellowship). When Norris and some 150 members of the church gathered to send Birch and a friend off to China, Norris said they went “fully informed as to the dangers that await them, but they go like the Apostle Paul when he knew that it meant death at Jerusalem.” Birch left his family with the words “Goodbye, folks, If we don’t meet again on earth, we’ll meet in heaven.”
In July, Birch arrived in Shanghai, which was in Japanese administered territory, although Americans were considered neutral citizens. While there, he began an intensive study of Mandarin Chinese. A few months later, he was assigned to Hangzhou which was also occupied by the Japanese. In October 1941, he left Hangzhou, going by a harrowing foot-trip, narrowly escaping Japanese fire, to run a mission station in Shangrao, in northwest Jiangsi. The area was poor and isolated, but Birch reassured his parents that although malaria and dengue fever had "knocked me down a bit" (weighed 155 pounds), he was "coming back up," eating rice and vegetables with Chinese workers, and milk, besides. His Chinese became good enough that he could preach a short sermon.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, added patriotic anger to Birch's outrage at Japanese atrocities in China. He was also finding it harder and harder to survive in Shangrao, and his diet made it harder and harder to maintain his health, already weakened by disease. He may also have started to doubt the mission bureaucrats, who soured him on organized religion. On April 13, 1942, he wrote to the American Military Mission in China saying that for both patriotic and practical reasons
he wanted to "jine the Army." He explained that he had been preaching behind Japanese lines for more than a year but was "finding it increasingly hard to do on an empty stomach (no word or funds from home since November)." He wanted to be a chaplain but would cheerfully "'tote' a rifle" or "whatever they tell me to do."
Wartime work in China
In April 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle and his flight crew bailed out over China after the Tokyo raid, the first surprise attack on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Their B-25 bomber was the first aircraft of sixteen B-25s flown off the aircraft carrier for the raid. After bombing Tokyo and out of fuel during their one-way flight, Doolittle and his four crewmembers bailed out over southeastern China in mountainous terrain as planned. They were rescued by Chinese civilians and smuggled by river safely out of Japanese lines by a sampan in Zhejiang Province by Birch who was informed of their being hidden in the riverboat. When Doolittle arrived in China's wartime capital, Chongqing, he told Colonel Claire Chennault, commander of the Flying Tigers (First American Volunteer Group-AVG, of the Chinese Air Force), about Birch's help, Chennault said he needed a Chinese-speaking American who knew the country well. After later talks with Birch who helped in the urgent finding and recovery of most of the Doolittle Raiders in China, about his experiences in China, Chennault who was now a brigadier general, commissioned Birch as a second lieutenant at Chongqing on July 5, 1942 to work as a field intelligence officer for him. Birch had first wanted to serve as a chaplain. The AVG was disbanded on July 4, and replaced by the 23rd Fighter Group of the U.S. Army Air Forces; Birch became a member of the 23rd Fighter Group which took on the AVG's nickname "Flying Tigers" and the Curtiss P-40 Warhawks shark teeth nose art.
Birch served with the China Air Task Force under Chennault, which became the Fourteenth Air Force in March 1943. He operated alone or with Nationalist Chinese soldiers, and often risked his life in Japanese-held territory. His activities included setting up intelligence networks of sympathetic Chinese, supplying Chennault with information on Japanese troop movements and shipping. He continued to hold Sunday church services for Chinese Christians. He set up radio intelligence networks, rescued downed American pilots, and had two emergency aircraft runways built. He received the Legion of Merit from Chennault on July 17, 1944.
Urged to take a leave of absence, Birch refused, telling Chennault he would not quit China until the last Japanese did. His political views continued to evolve. Birch wrote to Marjorie Tooker, with whom he had become closer and closer, that he found the Nationalist government “relatively small and unrepresentative," and with its "abuses, intolerance, and impotence" it never had the popular support needed to build a strong nation. Yet Chiang Kai-shek deserved praise for his “steadfastness of purpose" in fighting the war. The Communists, on the other hand, were "equally small, non-representative group," "whose leaders I consider hypocritical thugs." They should be “blamed for their lack of patriotism, but praised for their endurance and ingenuity in fighting the Japanese."
In 1945, Birch, now a captain, was seconded to the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the U.S. wartime intelligence service in World War II. At first, he criticized the OSS, wanting only to work for Chennault. V-J Day, August 14, signaled the end of formal hostilities, but under terms of the Japanese surrender, the Japanese Army was ordered to continue occupying the areas it controlled until they could be surrendered to the Nationalist government, even in places where the Chinese Communist-led government had been the de facto state for a decade. This led to continued fighting as the Chinese communists sought to expel all Japanese imperial forces, which it perceived to include U.S. personnel, who were then openly collaborating with the remaining Japanese forces.
In his diary, OSS Major Gustav Krause, commanding officer of one of three air bases in China and now in command of Captain Birch, noted: "Birch is a good officer, but I'm afraid is too brash and may run into trouble."
Death
After the formal Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945, OSS agents in China were ordered to northern China to take the surrender of Japanese commanders at their installations. The Chinese Communists, who controlled much of the mountainous area, were supposedly allies with the United States, but were not allowed to accept the surrender. Birch told a friend that he was not worried about going into Communist controlled territory, since he had worked with Communists many times and had little trouble with them.
On August 20, Birch left Xi'an for Xuzhou, where a Japanese facility and airfield was located, in command of a group consisting of two American soldiers, a civilian OSS operative, five Chinese officers, and two Koreans who spoke Japanese. Birch's mission, under direct orders from Lieutenant General Albert C. Wedemeyer, the commander of U.S. forces in China, was to go to Shandong Province to seize Japanese documents and to obtain information on airfields from which American prisoners of war (POWs) could be flown. Birch and his group traveled by foot, by Chinese junk, and by foot again, until they reached Kweiteh (Shangqiu), along the Lunghai railway (Longhai railway).
On August 24, after spending two nights in a nearby village, Birch's group boarded a train at Kweiteh, with a Chinese general and his orderly escorting them to Suchow, where Birch was to meet a Chinese general. Halfway and from Xuzhou, the train was stopped at the Tangshan railway station, where the group was informed that the line ahead had been sabotaged. Birch and his group continued for ten more miles until the train could not proceed because of missing track. A Japanese patrol arrived by handcar with replacement rails and repaired the track. Birch sent the train back to Tangshan and his group spent the night in a nearby village, which had been ravaged with men being killed by Chinese communists.
On the morning of August 25, Birch took over the handcar and continued to Suchow with his group, the Chinese general and his orderly. Over a mile down the line they ran into a group of 300 armed communists. Birch and Lieutenant Tung, who was his aide on the mission, were told to surrender their weapons and equipment, which included three radios. Birch, who was wearing his Army uniform, identified himself and refused to turn over his weapon; after arguing with the communist commander, they were allowed to proceed. Further along the way, Birch's group encountered a group of communists who were ripping up tracks and cutting down telephone poles. With Tung's help in speaking with the communists, the group was able to continue by handcar, and passed through another group of Chinese communists.
When they arrived at the Hwang Kao railway station, which was occupied by communist forces, Birch and Tung met the communist military leader there, who was accompanied by about twenty soldiers. Birch identified himself and refused to give up his sidearm. Tung, who was unarmed and tried to help Birch talk with the communist leader, was ordered to be shot. He was hit in the right thigh, and then clubbed on the head with a rifle butt. Afterwards, Birch, whose pistol was still holstered, was ordered shot; he was hit in the left thigh. His ankles and hands were then bound and, while kneeling, he was shot in the head. Birch's body was then bayonetted and both bodies were thrown in a ditch. The rest of Birch's team were taken prisoner. When they were able to do so, Chinese farmers took both bodies to the Chinese hospital at Xuzhou, where an autopsy was completed on Birch. Lt. Bill Miller, whose group was to have met up with Birch's group at Suchow, arrived on August 29. After learning about Birch and Tung, Miller immediately interviewed Tung, who had lost his leg and an eye. The autopsy report revealed that Birch had been shot in the leg, had his hands and ankles tied, and had been shot in the back of the head and bayonetted. Tung revealed to Miller that, after he heard the third shot, he was thrown into the ditch, next to Birch. Two weeks later, the other prisoners were released. There were different explanations and theories as to why Birch was killed, ranging from his party showing up at Hwang Kao instead of Ninchuan, Birch's scheduled meeting with Chinese puppet troops of the Sixth Army under General Hu Peng-chu, misunderstanding by local guerillas, and provocation from Birch himself.
Birch, and two American pilots who had died in a plane crash at the Xuzhou airport, were interred in side-by-side crypts. A Roman Catholic service was held in the cathedral in Xuzhou by Italian Jesuit priests and 24 Chinese carried the three American-flag-draped coffins in a procession to the burial site on a slope of Hung-lung Mountain, on the south side of Xuzhou. Final rites were given at the graveside by a Chinese Christian minister. Miller, who was a friend of Birch, was in charge of the funeral, and Chinese officers and Japanese soldiers gave the deceased full military honors.
Birch was the fifth of five OSS combat casualties in China.
Military awards
U.S. Senator William F. Knowland attempted unsuccessfully to obtain posthumous awards for Birch, including the Distinguished Service Cross and the Purple Heart, but these were not approved on the grounds that the United States was not at war with the Communist Chinese in 1945. Captain Birch received the following military awards:
John Birch Society
Birch is mainly known today by the society that bears his name. The John Birch Society was established in Indianapolis, Indiana, during a two-day session on December 8 and 9, 1958, by a group of twelve led by Robert W. Welch Jr., a retired candy manufacturer and Conservative political activist from Belmont, Massachusetts. In 1954, Welch authored the first book about Birch titled The Life of John Birch: In the story of one American boy, the ordeal of his age. He organized the JBS to promote less government, more responsibility, and a better world. Welch named the new organization after Birch, saying that Birch was an unknown but dedicated anti-communist, and the first American casualty of the Cold War. Jimmy Doolittle, U.S. Army, Retired, who met Birch in China after Doolittle's raid on Tokyo, Japan, said in his 1994 autobiography: "[Birch] had no way of knowing that the John Birch Society, a highly vocal postwar anticommunist organization, would be named after him because its founders believed him to be the 'first casualty of World War III.' I feel sure he would not have approved."
Welch received permission from Birch's parents to name the JBS after their son, and both his mother and father participated in Society related events.
Memorials
Birch's name is on the bronze plaque of a World War II monument at the top of Coleman Hill Park overlooking downtown Macon, Georgia along with the names of other Macon servicemen men who died in the military.
Birch has a plaque on the sanctuary of the First Southern Methodist Church of Macon, which was built on land given by his family, purchased with the money he sent home monthly.
"The John Birch Hall", a building at the First Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, was named after Birch by Pastor J. Frank Norris.
"John Birch Memorial Drive", a street in Townsend, Massachusetts, is named for him.
Birch is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia.
See also
Protestant missions in China 1807–1953
Notes
References
I Could Never Be So Lucky Again, James "Jimmy" Doolittle,
Mission to Yenan: American Liaison with the Chinese Communists 1944–1947, Carolle J. Carter,
The Secret File on John Birch, James Hefley, Hannibal Books, 1995 (updated version),
The Life of John Birch, Robert Welch, Western Islands,
External links
John Birch profile – Who2.com
Short History of the life of John M. Birch from the JBS.org Website.
NPR's "On the Media" on the John Birch Society's 50th Anniversary, December 12, 2008 (audio)
1918 births
1945 deaths
John Birch Society
Baptist missionaries in China
Baptist missionaries from the United States
Deaths by firearm in China
Mercer University alumni
People from Dehradun district
People from Macon, Georgia
People of the Office of Strategic Services
Recipients of the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army)
Recipients of the Legion of Merit
World War II spies for the United States
American people murdered abroad
American expatriates in China
American anti-communists
American military personnel killed in action
United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
United States Army Air Forces officers |
423573 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor%20Faustus%20%28play%29 | Doctor Faustus (play) | The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus, is an Elizabethan tragedy by Christopher Marlowe, based on German stories about the title character Faust. It was probably written in 1592 or 1593, shortly before Marlowe's death. Two different versions of the play were published in the Jacobean era several years later.
Performance
The Admiral's Men performed 24 times in the three years between October 1594 and October 1597. On 22 November 1602, the diary of Philip Henslowe recorded a £4 payment to Samuel Rowley and William Bird for additions to the play, which suggests a revival soon after that date.
The powerful effect of the early productions is indicated by the legends that quickly accrued around them. In Histriomastix, his 1632 polemic against the drama, William Prynne records the tale that actual devils once appeared on the stage during a performance of Faustus, "to the great amazement of both the actors and spectators". Some people were allegedly driven mad, "distracted with that fearful sight." John Aubrey recorded a related legend, that Edward Alleyn, lead actor of The Admiral's Men, devoted his later years to charitable endeavours, like the founding of Alleyn's College, in direct response to this incident.
Text
Given its source in the Historia von D. Johann Fausten, published as a chapbook in Germany in 1587, and the fact that the earliest known translation of the latter work into English was in 1592, the play was probably written in 1592 or 1593. It may have been entered into the Stationers' Register on 18 December 1592, though the records are confused and appear to indicate a conflict over the rights to the play. A subsequent Stationers' Register entry, dated 7 January 1601, assigns the play to the bookseller Thomas Bushell (variant written forms: Busshell or Bushnell), the publisher of the 1604 first edition. Bushell transferred his rights to the play to John Wright on 13 September 1610.
The two versions
Two versions of the play exist:
The 1604 quarto, printed by Valentine Simmes for Thomas Bushell; this is usually called the A text. The title page attributes the play to "Ch. Marl.". A second edition (A2) of first version was printed by George Eld for John Wright in 1609. It is merely a direct reprint of the 1604 text. The text is short for an English Renaissance play, only 1485 lines long.
The 1616 quarto, published by John Wright, the enlarged and altered text; usually called the B text. This second text was reprinted in 1619, 1620, 1624, 1631, and as late as 1663. Additions and alterations were made by the minor playwright and actor Samuel Rowley and by William Borne (or Birde), and possibly by Marlowe himself.
The 1604 version was once believed to be closer to the play as originally performed in Marlowe's lifetime, simply because it was older. By the 1940s, after influential studies by Leo Kirschbaum and W. W. Greg, the 1604 version came to be regarded as an abbreviation and the 1616 version as Marlowe's original fuller version. Kirschbaum and Greg considered the A-text a "bad quarto", and thought that the B-text was linked to Marlowe himself. Since then scholarship has swung the other way, most scholars now considering the A-text more authoritative, even if "abbreviated and corrupt", according to Charles Nicholl.
The 1616 version omits 36 lines but adds 676 new lines, making it roughly one third longer than the 1604 version. Among the lines shared by both versions, there are some small but significant changes in wording; for example, "Never too late, if Faustus can repent" in the 1604 text becomes "Never too late, if Faustus will repent" in the 1616 text, a change that offers a very different possibility for Faustus's hope and repentance.
Another difference between texts A and B is the name of the devil summoned by Faustus. Text A states the name is generally "Mephistopheles", while the version of text B commonly states "Mephostophilis". The name of the devil is in each case a reference to Mephistopheles in Faustbuch, the source work, which appeared in English translation in about 1588.
The relationship between the texts is uncertain and many modern editions print both. As an Elizabethan playwright, Marlowe had nothing to do with the publication and had no control over the play in performance, so it was possible for scenes to be dropped or shortened, or for new scenes to be added, so that the resulting publications may be modified versions of the original script.
Comic scenes
In the past, it was assumed that the comic scenes were additions by other writers. However, most scholars today consider the comic interludes an integral part of the play, regardless of their author, and so they continue to be included in print. Their tone shows the change in Faustus's ambitions, suggesting Marlowe did at least oversee the composition of them. The Clown is seen as the archetype for comic relief.
Sources
Doctor Faustus is based on an older tale; it is believed to be the first dramatisation of the Faust legend. Some scholars believe that Marlowe developed the story from a popular 1592 translation, commonly called The English Faust Book. There is thought to have been an earlier, lost German edition of 1587, the Historia von D. Johann Fausten, which itself may have been influenced by even earlier, equally ill-preserved pamphlets in Latin (such as those that likely inspired Jacob Bidermann's treatment of the damnation of the doctor of Paris, Cenodoxus (1602)).
Several soothsayers or necromancers of the late fifteenth century adopted the name Faustus, a reference to the Latin for "favoured" or "auspicious"; typical was Georgius Faustus Helmstetensis, calling himself astrologer and chiromancer, who was expelled from the town of Ingolstadt for such practices. Subsequent commentators have identified this individual as the prototypical Faustus of the legend.
Whatever the inspiration, the development of Marlowe's play is very faithful to the Faust Book, especially in the way it mixes comedy with tragedy.
However, Marlowe also introduced some changes to make it more original. He made four main additions:
Faustus's soliloquy, in Act 1, on the vanity of human science
Good and Bad Angels
The substitution of a Pageant of Devils for the seven deadly sins. He also emphasised Faustus's intellectual aspirations and curiosity, and minimised the vices in the character, to lend a Renaissance aura to the story.
The name Bruno in the rival Pope scenes recalls that of Giordano Bruno who was tried for heresy by the Inquisition and burnt at the stake in 1600. This reference indicates that Marlowe recognised the cosmic machinery of the Faust story as a reflection of terrestrial power and authority, by which dissidents were tortured and executed in the name of obedience and conformity.
Structure
The play is in blank verse and prose in thirteen scenes (1604) or twenty scenes (1616).
Blank verse is largely reserved for the main scenes; prose is used in the comic scenes. Modern texts divide the play into five acts; act 5 being the shortest. As in many Elizabethan plays, there is a chorus (which functions as a narrator), that does not interact with the other characters but rather provides an introduction and conclusion to the play and, at the beginning of some Acts, introduces events that have unfolded.
Along with its history and language style, scholars have critiqued and analysed the structure of the play. Leonard H. Frey wrote a document entitled In the Opening and Close of Doctor Faustus, which mainly focuses on Faustus's opening and closing soliloquies. He stresses the importance of the soliloquies in the play, saying: "the soliloquy, perhaps more than any other dramatic device, involved the audience in an imaginative concern with the happenings on stage". By having Doctor Faustus deliver these soliloquies at the beginning and end of the play, the focus is drawn to his inner thoughts and feelings about succumbing to the devil.
The soliloquies also have parallel concepts. In the introductory soliloquy, Faustus begins by pondering the fate of his life and what he wants his career to be. He ends his soliloquy with the solution: he will give his soul to the devil. Similarly in the closing soliloquy, Faustus begins pondering, and finally comes to terms with the fate he created for himself. Frey also explains: "The whole pattern of this final soliloquy is thus a grim parody of the opening one, where decision is reached after, not prior to, the survey".
Synopsis
The Chorus explains that Faustus was low-born, but quickly achieved a doctorate in theology at the University of Wittenberg. However, his interest in learning and his pride soon led him to necromancy.
In the first scene of the play, Faustus expresses his boredom and impatience with the various branches of knowledge and concludes that only magic is worth learning. He asks his servant Wagner to return with the magicians Valdes and Cornelius, who have been trying to interest him in magic for some time. While he waits, he is visited by a Good Angel, who tries to dissuade him from this path, and a Bad Angel, who encourages him. Valdes and Cornelius arrive and declare that if Faustus devotes himself to magic, great things are indeed possible with someone of Faustus's learning and intelligence.
While Faustus is at dinner with the magicians, two scholars notice Faustus's absence and ask Wagner about his whereabouts. When Wagner tells them he is with Valdes and Cornelius, the scholars worry that the magicians have corrupted him and leave to inform the rector of the university.
Faustus attempts to conjure a devil, and Mephistophilis arrives. Faustus believes that he has summoned him, but Mephistophilis says that he came of his own accord, and that he serves Lucifer, and cannot do anything without his leave. Faustus questions Mephistophilis about Lucifer and Hell, and tells him to speak to Lucifer and return. The next scene is a comedic reflection in which Wagner calls two devils, with which he scares the Clown into serving him.
Mephistophilis returns, and Faustus signs a contract in his own blood: Mephistophilis will serve him for 24 years, at which point Lucifer will claim him, body and soul. Once the contract is signed, Faustus asks for a wife, but Mephistophilis declines, saying marriage is "but a ceremonial toy"; he asks for books of knowledge, and Mephistophilis provides a single book. In the corresponding comedic scene, Robin, a hostler, has stolen a conjuring book, and plans mischief with it.
Faustus begins to waver and think about God, and is visited again by the Good and Bad Angels. Lucifer arrives to remind him of his contract, and entertains him with a show of the Seven Deadly Sins. Faustus and Mephistophilis then travel Europe, eventually arriving in Rome, where they play tricks on the Pope. Next, Robin and Rafe (A version) or Dick (B version), having been caught for stealing a goblet, call on Mephistophilis, who arrives and angrily turns them into animals before returning to attend on Faustus. Faustus has been called to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, where he and Mephistophilis conjure Alexander the Great and his paramour and give a knight cuckold's horns for being a heckler. In the A version, the emperor asks Faust to relent, and he does; in the B version a longer scene follows in which the knight and his friends attack Faustus; all are given horns. In both versions, Faustus then plays tricks on a horse dealer. Faustus and Mephistophilis then put on a magic show for the Duke and Duchess of Vanholt.
When Faustus's 24 years are nearly up, he bequeaths his possessions to Wagner. He conjures Helen of Troy for some students, and, when he starts to think of repenting again, renews his pledge to Lucifer and asks Mephistophilis for Helen as his lover. In the final scene, Faustus admits to some scholars that he has bargained away his soul; despite their prayers, the devils come for him.
The Calvinist/anti-Calvinist controversy
The theological implications of Doctor Faustus have been the subject of considerable debate. Among the most complicated points of contention is whether the play supports or challenges the Calvinist doctrine of absolute predestination, which dominated the lectures and writings of many English scholars in the latter half of the sixteenth century. According to Calvin, predestination meant that God, acting of his own free will, elects some people to be saved and others to be damned—thus, the individual has no control over his own ultimate fate. This doctrine was the source of great controversy because it was seen by the so-called anti-Calvinists to limit man's free will in regard to faith and salvation, and to present a dilemma in terms of theodicy.
At the time Doctor Faustus was performed, this doctrine was on the rise in England, and under the direction of Puritan theologians at Cambridge and Oxford had come to be considered the orthodox position of the Church of England. Nevertheless, it remained the source of vigorous and, at times, heated debate between Calvinist scholars, such as William Whitaker and William Perkins, and anti-Calvinists, such as William Barrett and Peter Baro. The dispute between these Cambridge intellectuals had quite nearly reached its zenith by the time Marlowe was a student there in the 1580s, and likely would have influenced him deeply, as it did many of his fellow students.
Concerning the fate of Faustus, the Calvinist concludes that his damnation was inevitable. His rejection of God and subsequent inability to repent are taken as evidence that he never really belonged to the elect, but rather had been predestined from the very beginning for reprobation. For the Calvinist, Faustus represents the worst kind of sinner, having tasted the heavenly gift and rejected it. His damnation is justified and deserved because he was never truly adopted among the elect. According to this view, the play demonstrates Calvin's "three-tiered concept of causation," in which the damnation of Faustus is first willed by God, then by Satan, and finally, by himself.
Themes and motifs
"Ravished" by magic (1.1.112), Faustus turns to the dark arts when law, logic, science, and theology fail to satisfy him. According to Charles Nicholl this places the play firmly in the Elizabethan period when the problem of magic ("liberation or damnation?") was a matter of debate, and when Renaissance occultism aimed at a furthering of science. Nicholl, who connects Faustus as a "studious artisan" (1.1.56) to the "hands-on experience" promoted by Paracelsus, sees in the former a follower of the latter, a "magician as technologist".
Mephistophilis
Mephistophilis is a demon whom Faustus conjures up while first using magic. Readers initially feel sympathy for the demon when he attempts to explain to Faustus the consequences of abjuring God and Heaven. Mephistophilis gives Faustus a description of Hell and the continuous horrors it possesses; he wants Faustus to know what he is getting himself into before going through with the bargain:
Think'st thou that I who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joy of heaven
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
O Faustus, leave these frivolous demands
Which strikes a terror to my fainting soul!
However, Faustus believes that supernatural powers are worth a lifetime in Hell:
Say he (Faustus) surrender up to him (Lucifer) his soul
So he will spare him four and twenty years,
Letting him live in all voluptuousness
Having thee (Mephistophilis) ever to attend on me
Some scholars argue that Mephistophilis depicts the sorrow that comes with separation from God. Mephistophilis is foreshadowing the pain Faustus would have to endure, should he go through with his plan. In this facet, Faustus can be likened to Icarus, whose ambition was the source of his misery and the cause of his death.
Adaptations
The first television adaptation was broadcast in 1947 by the BBC starring David King-Wood as Faustus and Hugh Griffith as Mephistopheles. In 1958, another BBC television version starred William Squire as Faustus in an adaptation by Ronald Eyre intended for schools. In 1961, the BBC adapted the play for television as a two-episode production starring Alan Dobie as Faustus; this production was also meant for use in schools.
The play was adapted for the screen in 1967 by Richard Burton and Nevill Coghill, who based the film on an Oxford University Dramatic Society production in which Burton starred opposite Elizabeth Taylor as Helen of Troy.
There have been several adaptations on BBC Radio and elsewhere:
The very first production on BBC Radio was broadcast on 29 June 1932, directed by Barbara Burnham with Ion Swinley as Faustus.
The Oxford University Dramatic Society broadcast a production on the BBC National Programme on 13 April 1934 with R. F. Felton as Faustus and P.B.P. Glenville as Mephistopheles.
The BBC Third Programme broadcast an adaptation on 11 October 1946 with Alec Guinness as Faustus and Laidman Browne as Mephistophilis.
A second BBC Third Programme adaptation was broadcast on 18 October 1949 with Robert Harris as Faustus, Peter Ustinov as Mephistophilis, Rupert Davies as Lucifer and Donald Gray as the Emperor of Germany.
The BBC Home Service broadcast a production on 1 June 1964 with Stephen Murray as Faustus and Esme Percy as Mephistophilis.
On 24 December 1995, BBC Radio 3 broadcast an adaptation of the play with Stephen Moore as Faustus, Philip Voss as Mephistopheles and Maurice Denham as the Old Man.
An adaptation was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 23 September 2007, this time with Paterson Joseph as Faustus, Ray Fearon as Mephistopheles, Toby Jones as Wagner, Janet McTeer as the Evil Angel and Anton Lesser as the Emperor.
American composer Mary McCarty Snow (1928–2012) composed music for a Texas Tech University production of Dr. Faustus.
A production, adapted and directed by Emma Harding with John Heffernan as both Faustus and Mephistopheles, Pearl Mackie as Wagner, Tim McMullan as Cornelius/Emperor Charles V/Covetousness, Simon Ludders as Valdes/Beelzebub/Knight and Frances Tomelty as the Good Angel, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 19 September 2012.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast a full radio adaptation of the play with Kenneth Welsh as Faustus and Eric Peterson as Mephistopheles, later releasing it on audio cassette () in 2001 as part of its "Great Plays of the Millennium" series.
Two live performances in London have been videotaped and released on DVD: one at the Greenwich Theatre in 2010 and one at the Globe Theatre in 2011 starring Paul Hilton as Faustus and Arthur Darvill as Mephistopheles.
In 2020 the Beyond Shakespeare Company released on line a play-reading and discussion of the A Text.
Critical history
Doctor Faustus has raised much controversy due to its alleged interaction with the demonic realm. Before Marlowe, there were few authors who ventured into this kind of writing. After his play, other authors began to expand on their views of the spiritual world.
See also
Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris, a line from the play commonly translated as "misery loves company"
Notes
References
Chambers, E. K. The Elizabethan Stage. 4 Volumes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1923.
Logan, Terence P., and Denzell S. Smith, eds. The Predecessors of Shakespeare: A Survey and Bibliography of Recent Studies in English Renaissance Drama. Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 1973.
External links
1616 quarto online
Louis Ule, A Concordance to the Works of Christopher Marlowe, Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim-New York, 1979, pp. 101–184.
1592 plays
1593 plays
1604 plays
Plays by Christopher Marlowe
English Renaissance plays
Works based on the Faust legend
Fiction about invisibility
British plays adapted into films
Cultural depictions of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Tragedy plays |
423621 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moche%20culture | Moche culture | The Moche civilization (; alternatively, the Mochica culture or the Early, Pre- or Proto-Chimú) flourished in northern Peru with its capital near present-day Moche, Trujillo, Peru from about 100 to 700 AD during the Regional Development Epoch. While this issue is the subject of some debate, many scholars contend that the Moche were not politically organized as a monolithic empire or state. Rather, they were likely a group of autonomous polities that shared a common culture, as seen in the rich iconography and monumental architecture that survives today.
Background
Moche society was agriculturally based, with a significant level of investment in the construction of a sophisticated network of irrigation canals for the diversion of river water to supply their crops. Their artifacts express their lives, with detailed scenes of hunting, fishing, fighting, sacrifice, sexual encounters, and elaborate ceremonies. The Moche are particularly noted for their elaborately painted ceramics, gold work, monumental constructions (huacas), and irrigation systems.
Moche history may be broadly divided into three periods: the emergence of the Moche culture in Early Moche (100–300 AD), the expansion and flourishing during Middle Moche (300–600 AD), and the urban nucleation and subsequent collapse in Late Moche (500–750 AD).
The Salinar culture reigned on the north coast of Peru from 200 BC–200 AD. According to some scholars, this was a short transition period between the Cupisnique and the Moche cultures.
There are considerable parallels between Moche and Cupisnique iconography and ceramic designs, including the iconography of the 'Spider god'.
Moche cultural sphere
The Moche cultural sphere is centered on several valleys on the north coast of Peru in regions La Libertad, Lambayeque, Jequetepeque, Chicama, Moche, Virú, Chao, Santa, and Nepena. It occupied 250 miles of desert coastline and up to 50 miles inland.
The Huaca del Sol, a pyramidal adobe structure on the Rio Moche, was the largest pre-Columbian structure in Peru. It was partly destroyed when Spanish Conquistadors looted its graves for gold in the 16th century. The nearby Huaca de la Luna is better preserved, with many of its interior walls still filled with many colorful murals and complex iconography. The site has been under professional archaeological excavation since the early 1990s.
Other major Moche sites include Sipan, Loma Negra, Dos Cabezas, Pacatnamu, the El Brujo complex, Mocollope, Cerro Mayal, Galindo, Huanchaco, and Pañamarka.
Their adobe huacas have been mostly destroyed by looters and natural forces over the last 1,300 years. The surviving ones show that the coloring of their murals was quite vibrant.
Southern and Northern Moche
Two distinct regions of the Moche civilization have been identified, Southern and Northern Moche, with each area probably corresponding to a different political entity.
The Southern Moche region, believed to be the heartland of the culture, originally comprised the Chicama and Moche valleys, and was first described by Rafael Larco Hoyle. The Huaca del Sol-Huaca de la Luna site was probably the capital of this region.
The Northern Moche region includes three valley systems:
The upper Piura Valley, around the Vicús culture region
The lower Lambayeque Valley system, consisting of three rivers: La Leche, Reque and Zaña
The lower Jequetepeque Valley system
The Piura was fully part of the Moche phenomenon only for a short time—during its Early Moche, or Early Moche-Vicús phase—and then developed independently.
It appears that there was a lot of independent development among these various Moche centers (except in the eastern regions). They all likely had ruling dynasties of their own, related to each other. Centralized control of the whole Moche area may have taken place from time to time, but appears infrequent.
Pampa Grande, in the Lambayeque Valley, on the shore of the Chancay River, became one of the largest Moche sites anywhere, and occupied an area of more than 400 hectares. It was prominent in the Moche V period (600–700 AD), and features an abundance of Moche V ceramics.
The site was laid out and built in a short period of time and has an enormous ceremonial complex. It includes Huaca Fortaleza, which is the tallest ceremonial platform in Peru.
San Jose de Moro is another northern site in the Jequetepeque valley. It was prominent in the Middle and Late Moche Periods (400–850 AD). Numerous Moche tombs have been excavated here, including several burials containing high status female individuals. These women were depicted in Moche iconography as the Priestess.
Material culture
Ceramics
Moche pottery is some of the most varied in the world. The use of mold technology is evident, which would have enabled the mass production of certain forms. But Moche ceramics vary widely in shape and theme, with most important social activities documented in pottery, including war, agriculture, metalwork, weaving, and erotica.
Traditional north coast Peruvian ceramic art uses a limited palette, relying primarily on red and white colors, fineline painting, fully modeled clay, veristic figures, and stirrup spouts. Moche ceramics created between 150–800 AD epitomize this style. Moche pots have been found not just at major north coast archaeological sites, such as Huaca de la luna, Huaca del sol, and Sipan, but also at small villages and unrecorded burial sites as well.
At least 500 Moche ceramics have sexual themes. The most frequently depicted act is anal sex, with scenes of vaginal penetration being very rare. Most pairs are heterosexual, with carefully carved genitalia to show that the anus, rather than the vagina, is being penetrated. Often, an infant is depicted breastfeeding while the couple has sex. Fellatio is sometimes represented, but cunnilingus is absent. Some depict male skeletons masturbating, or being masturbated by living women.
Because irrigation was the source of wealth and foundation of the empire, the Moche culture emphasized the importance of circulation and flow. Expanding upon this, Moche artwork frequently depicted the passage of fluids, particularly life fluids through vulnerable human orifices. There are countless images of defeated warriors losing life fluids through their nose, or helpless victims getting their eyes torn out by birds or captors. Images of captive sex-slaves with gaping orifices and leaking fluids portray extreme exposure, humiliation, and a loss of power.
The coloration of Moche pottery is often simple, with yellowish cream and rich red used almost exclusively on elite pieces. White and black are rarely used. The Moche are known for their portraiture pottery. The pottery portraits created by the Moche appear to represent actual individuals. Many of the portraits are of individuals with physical disfigurements or genetic defects.
The realistic detail in Moche ceramics may have helped them serve as didactic models. Older generations could pass down general knowledge about reciprocity and embodiment to younger generations through such portrayals. The sex pots could teach about procreation, sexual pleasure, cultural and social norms, a sort of immortality, the transfer of life and souls, transformation, and the relationship between the two cyclical views of nature and life.
Textiles
Extreme weather and fragility of garments mean that relatively few examples of Moche textiles exist. However, limited quantities have been found in tombs, especially of higher-status members of society. Many of the remaining garments are incomplete articles, partially broken down. Nevertheless, scholars have been able to gain cultural insights from the remaining Moche textiles. The Moche wove textiles, mostly using cotton and wool from vicuña and alpaca. The relative presence of these fabrics, as well as which patterns were used, varies chronologically throughout Moche culture. Too few relics exist from early Moche culture to draw conclusive findings. Textiles from around 450 AD uniquely include a male head cloth—which is not readily found elsewhere. Twill and gauze weaving is also common among samples from this period, though by the 500-800 AD range, these patterns become much less abundant. It is thought that elite members of Moche society had specialized artisans who manufactured their textiles, whereas lower-ranking typical members of society would manufacture their own clothing. Whorls and needles have proven quite common in excavation of Moche dwellings—pointing to a household level of production. However, more monochrome, homogenized relics suggest mass-production may have become more common by 500-800 AD. Variation in garments likely correlates with different social classes. Sophisticated weaving techniques and bright dyes are more common on elites' clothing, whereas commoners may have had garments that were less sophisticated and lacked dye—and they likely had fewer of them. Complex tapestries developed by artisans are another good associated with high social hierarchy. Several specific items also correlate to gender in Moche culture, such as a head cloth for men and a long tunic for women. Foreigners to the Moche Culture were commonly portrayed wearing Moche clothing that contained details pertaining to both genders or items that were not specific to either. Descendants of Moche people today continue to have strong weaving traditions.
Metalwork
The Moche discovered both electrochemical replacement plating and depletion gilding, which they used to cover copper crafts found at Loma Negra in thin layers of gold or silver. Modern attempts were able to recreate a similar chemical plating process using boiling water and salts found naturally in the area.
It is the Moche ceramic tradition that had previously been given the most attention in Archaeology, though this is beginning to change as archaeologists continue to discover ties between iconography on ceramic and other parts of Moche art. Just as important to Moche craftsmanship and culture is metallurgy. The skill required to create these objects is perhaps some of the finest the world has ever known.
The first Moche metalworks entered into the archaeological record were unearthed by Max Uhle at Huaca del Sol and Huaca de Luna during 1899 and 1900, but were largely ignored while Uhle focused on other aspects of the sites. Moche metal work gained attention after Peruvian researcher Rafael Larco Hoyle published Los Mochicas in 1945. Here, he mostly focused on describing the large flared headdresses and brilliantly decorated nose ornaments often found in connection with the Moche elite. Despite having no formal training in archaeology, Larco Hoyle was the first to truly attempt a systematic reconstruction of the Moche by drawing on information from excavations, art, iconography, Spanish documents, and modern traditions. The discovery of bronze and gold artifacts buried in the Warrior Priest tomb at the Huaca de la Cruz site one year later also encouraged further study. The same would happen when burial grounds at the site now known as Loma Negra in the Piura Valley were unearthed by looters finding a wealth of gold, silver, and copper objects along with ceramic vessels.
An important discovery in the context of Moche metallurgy was the discovery of the Tombs of Sipán in 1986. These burials included a wealth of metal objects unparalleled with any previous discovery. Most of these objects remained in their original context, allowing researchers to prove beyond reasonable doubt that metal objects were closely intertwined with the power of the Moche elite. The rulers of the Moche were incredibly adept at portraying and perpetuating their power through art, which is well-exemplified by the Moche metallurgy.
Moche techniques in metalworking have proved to be an intriguing area of research. Their techniques were likely some of the most advanced in the world during the time of the Moche; restoration has proven difficult to many present-day metalworkers.
Craftspeople perfected a wide variety of metalworking techniques. When they invaded in the sixteenth century, Spanish conquistadors took note of the highly skilled metalwork the Inca were able to produce. Unlike European metalworkers, the Inca blew through long tubes to heat coals, rather than using bellows to create a forced draft of air. It is probable that the Moche used a similar method. In fact, archaeologists are aware of several bowls from the Moche culture that depict this process. Many of the Moche metalworking techniques were invented or at least perfected by the Moche themselves, but they owe the invention of some of their most-used techniques at least in part to the influences of the Chavín culture that preceded them. Like the artists of Chavín, they mostly used alloys that contained some combination of gold, silver, or copper that they had developed. While Moche art as a whole is very much independent of the Chavín style, many recurring motifs found across Moche art, including the metalwork, also seem to have their roots in Chavín culture. Moche art continues the tradition of anthropomorphic figures as well as characters with prominent fangs, although the fangs are usually less pronounced than Chavín art and not present quite as often. That is not to say that the Moche didn’t leave their own mark on the Anden society. Many of the techniques developed by the Moche, especially their electroplating and gilding techniques used to make copper alloys appear to be almost internally gold or silver, would continue to be used up until the Inca conquest hundreds of years after the Moche’s collapse.
Several examples of the molds used to shape the low relief sculptures have been discovered, most are made of a solid metal alloy but wood molds were also used. Researchers Christopher B. Donnan and David A. Scott proved how delicate this process of shaping is when they used a cast of one of the copper alloy molds to recreate the process. They found one of the most important parts of the process is the thickness of the sheet metal. Too thick and it will fail to capture the details of the mold and prove too difficult to shape, but too thin and the metal would winkle and tear. They found 0.4mm to be the ideal thickness although the repeated hammering thinned the sheet down to 0.25mm, in addition to hammering repeated annealing was also required. Analysis of the items found at the tombs of Sipan has found that the Moche were able to maintain an almost completely uniform thickness between 1 and about 0.1 millimeters depending on the object.
When this was completed several other techniques could be used to finish the piece. Oftentimes other pieces were attached, sometimes with the intention of being moving parts of the work. More often than not this was done by crimping the metal or the use of interlocking tabs and slits in the two parts, but soldering and edged-wielding were also used. Finishing touches could also be added with embossing, punching and chasing along with embedding other precious materials. Stones such as lapis lazuli, turquoise, spondylus shells, and others have all been found embedded in Moche metal works. It's worth noting that several of the materials are not found on the Moche coast. Lapis Lazuli was available only from modern Chile hundreds of miles to the south and Spondulus shells had to be acquired from modern Ecuador to the north. This makes it clear that the Moche must have had extensive trade networks, and likely contact with other cultures. Also notable in this context is the fact that many of the animals accurately depicted in Moche artwork are found only in the tropical Amazon.
Agricultural engineering
Researchers of the Moche culture agree that the emergence of the Moche culture is related to the intensification of the production of corn, cotton, beans and squash, among other agricultural products, which allowed the development of a regional Moche political economy in the Valley of Moche from the north coast of Peru during the Early Intermediate Period (400 BC–600 AD).
The northern region of Peru is one of the most arid areas in the world, where there is no rain throughout the year. That factor, far from discouraging the establishment of communities, was the trigger for the construction of an outstanding culture that developed engineering works that interconnected various river valleys, with the aim of irrigating desert territories.
Many of the Mochica agricultural systems are still in operation, such as the Ascope aqueduct, the La Cumbre Canal, in Chicama, or the San Jose dam, which continue to provide water, coming from the Andean region and groundwater, guaranteeing several harvests per year.
Access to new farmland, gained from the desert, was the starting point of a civilization that, based on abundant harvests, became socially stratified. All this allowed certain members of the community to no longer dedicate themselves exclusively to food production, and a process of specialization began that led to the development of the Mochica civilization.
Gallery
Religion
Both iconography and the finds of human skeletons in ritual contexts seem to indicate that human sacrifice played a significant part in Moche religious practices. These rites appear to have involved the elite as key actors in a spectacle of costumed participants, monumental settings and possibly the ritual consumption of blood. The tumi was a crescent-shaped metal knife used in sacrifices. While some scholars, such as Christopher B. Donnan and Izumi Shimada, argue that the sacrificial victims were the losers of ritual battles among local elites, others, such as John Verano and Richard Sutter, suggest that the sacrificial victims were warriors captured in territorial battles between the Moche and other nearby societies. Excavations in plazas near Moche huacas have found groups of people sacrificed together and the skeletons of young men deliberately excarnated, perhaps for temple displays.
The Moche may have also held and tortured the victims for several weeks before sacrificing them, with the intent of deliberately drawing blood. Verano believes that some parts of the victim may have been eaten as well in ritual cannibalism. The sacrifices may have been associated with rites of ancestral renewal and agricultural fertility. Moche iconography features a figure which scholars have nicknamed the "Decapitator"; it is frequently depicted as a spider, but sometimes as a winged creature or a sea monster: together all three features symbolize land, water and air. When the body is included, the figure is usually shown with one arm holding a knife and another holding a severed head by the hair; it has also been depicted as "a human figure with a tiger's mouth and snarling fangs". The "Decapitator" is thought to have figured prominently in the beliefs surrounding the practice of sacrifice.
Social stratification
Although it remains somewhat unclear how geographically divided Moche culture was, scholars are very confident that the Moche were a socially divided society. Beyond royalty, the Moche can be divided into a general upper and lower class, and each class can be further stratified into smaller groups. Intra-class movement was possible within these broad categories, but inter-class switches between them were less feasible. Many pre-contact cultures share a divided structure comparable to the Moche—but each may have unique development.
Although religion seems to have been a centripetal force for the Moche, members of the elite class likely used it to reinforce their status. Other ideological, economic, political, and social factors may have also been leveraged to similar ends. A common approach to maintaining power was for members of the elite, such as priests and priestesses, to use ceremonies to reinforce their standing (see the Religion section for more information on ceremonies). It may also be true that physical force was used. The Moche elite may have struggled to retain power at times, and inter-elite quarreling is speculated to have played into the culture’s collapse.
Excavated Moche burial sites constitute a large body of evidence for social stratification. Those lowest in the Moche hierarchy were buried in a simple hole near their household; platform mounds with an abundance of goods were awarded to the highest-ranking members of society. An incomplete list of possible funerary objects includes copper masks, silver, pottery, and gold goods. Presence of metal-worked goods is thought to be especially significant with respect to high status. Excavation of dwellings indicates that living conditions of Moche likely also differed based on social standing, but excavation data here remains skewed and not entirely complete so far. Excavated elite burials also illustrate that remains sexed both male and female held elite positions in Moche culture.
Collapse
There are multiple theories as to what caused the demise of the Moche political structure. Some scholars have emphasized the role of environmental change. Studies of ice cores drilled from glaciers in the Andes reveal climatic events between 563 and 594 AD, possibly a super El Niño, that resulted in 30 years of intense rain and flooding followed by 30 years of drought, part of the aftermath of the climate changes of 535–536. These weather events could have disrupted the Moche way of life, political hierarchy, and jeopardized their faith in their religion. This super El Niño may have hindered Moche agriculture. Moche agriculture relied considerably on canal-based irrigation from Andes mountain runoff, which a severe drought would have jeopardized. Certain scholars attribute strain on the irrigation systems to sensitive tectonics in the region.
Other evidence demonstrates that these events did not cause a complete Moche demise. Moche polities survived beyond 650 AD in the Jequetepeque Valley and the Moche Valleys. For instance, in the Jequetepeque Valley, later settlements are characterized by fortifications and defensive works. While there is no evidence of a foreign invasion (i.e. a Huari invasion) as many scholars have suggested in the past, the defensive works suggest social unrest, possibly the result of climatic changes, as factions fought for control over increasingly scarce resources.
Links with other cultures
Chronologically, the Moche was an Early Intermediate Period culture, which was preceded by the Chavín horizon, as well as the Cupisnique, and succeeded by the Huari and Chimú. The Moche co-existed with the Ica-Nazca culture in the south. They are thought to have had some limited contact with the Ica-Nazca because they later mined guano for fertilizer and may have traded with northerners. Moche pottery has been found near Ica, but no Ica-Nazca pottery has been found in Moche territory.
The coastal Moche culture also co-existed (or overlapped in time) with the slightly earlier Recuay culture in the highlands. Some Moche iconographic motifs can be traced to Recuay design elements.
The Moche also interacted with the neighbouring Virú culture. Eventually, by 700 CE, they established control over the Viru.
Archaeological discoveries
In 1899 and 1900, Max Uhle was the first archaeologist to excavate a Moche site, Huaca de la Luna, which is where the architectural complex that is known as Huacas de Moche (Pyramids of Moche) is located in the Moche Valley. The name of this architectural complex is where the name of the Moche site and culture came from.
Excavations in 1938 and 1939 by Rafael Larco Hoyle saw the development of the first interpretations of Moche culture, ranking the Moche as being "high on the list of advanced societies" as a civilization. He listed traits of the Moche culture such as "exquisite artworks" and the "creation of large scale facilities and public works" as a testament to this ranking.
Arguably the most significant event which shaped Moche archaeological research was the Virú Valley Project, beginning in 1946 and led by Willian Duncan Strong and Wendell Bennett. Their stratigraphic excavations in Virú showed an earlier ceramic style known as Gallinazo, which appeared to have “abruptly ended”.
In 1987, archaeologists, alerted by the local police, discovered the first intact Moche tomb at Sipán in northern Peru. Inside the tomb, which was carbon dated to about 300 AD, the archaeologists found the mummified remains of a high ranking male, the Lord of Sipán. Also in the tomb were the remains of six other individuals, several animals, and a large variety of ornamental and functional items, many of which were made of gold, silver, and other valuable materials. Continuing excavations of the site have yielded thirteen additional tombs.
In 2005, a mummified Moche woman known as the Lady of Cao was discovered at the Huaca Cao Viejo, part of the El Brujo archaeological site on the outskirts of present-day Trujillo, Peru. It is the best preserved Moche mummy found to date; the elaborate tomb that housed her had unprecedented decoration. Archaeologists believe that the tomb had been undisturbed since approximately 450 AD. The tomb contained military and ornamental artifacts, including war clubs and spear throwers. The remains of a garroted teenage girl, probably a servant, was also found in the tomb. News of the discovery was announced by Peruvian and U.S. archaeologists in collaboration with National Geographic in May 2006.
In 2005 an elaborate gold mask thought to depict a sea god, with curving rays radiating from a stone-inlaid feline face, was recovered in London by the Metropolitan Police. Experts believe that the artifact had been looted in the late 1980s from an elite tomb at the Moche site of La Mina. It was returned to Peru in 2006.
In 2013 archaeologists unearthed the eighth of a series of finds of female skeleton that started with the Lady of Cao, together taken as evidence that the Moche were ruled by a succession of priestesses-queens. According to project director Luis Jaime Castillo, "[the] find makes it clear that women didn't just run rituals in this area but governed here and were queens of Mochica society". This discovery was made at the large archaeological site of San José de Moro, located close to the town of Chepen, in the Sechura Desert of the Jequetepeque Valley, in La Libertad Region, Peru.
See also
Chimu Empire, heavily influenced inheritors of the Moche
Cultural periods of Peru
El Señor de Sipán (the Lord of Sipán)
Moche Crawling Feline
Vista Alegre, Trujillo
Víctor Larco
Buenos Aires, Trujillo
Moche, Trujillo (Moche City)
Viracocha
Virú culture
References
Further reading
External links
Moche Civilization – World History Encyclopedia
Map of current Moche city (Wikimapia)
"A Peruvian Woman Warrior of A.D. 450", New York Times article (17 May 2006) by John Noble Wilford.
"The Lost Civilisation of Peru", transcript of BBC programme, includes bibliography.
Gallery of Moche erotic pottery at the Larco Museum.
El Brujo Archaeological project, website with links to National University of Trujillo, IBM, National Geographic and press reports.
"Temples of Doom", Discover article (March 1999) by Heather Pringle.
"The Ulluchu fruit: Blood Rituals and Sacrificial Practices Among the Moche People of Ancient Peru" by Francesco Sammarco.
"Moche pottery and the practice of war", Horniman Museum video on YouTube channel.
Moche Iconography, Dumbarton Oaks online resource linking to digitized roll-out drawings of Moche ceramic fineline iconography.
Andean civilizations
Pre-Columbian cultures
Former countries in South America
Prehistory of Peru
Archaeology of Peru
2nd-century establishments
8th-century disestablishments in South America |
423672 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchman%20Nee | Watchman Nee | Watchman Nee, Ni Tuosheng, or Nee T'o-sheng (; November 4, 1903 – May 30, 1972), was a Chinese church leader and Christian teacher who worked in China during the 20th century. His evangelism was influenced by the Plymouth Brethren.
In 1922, he initiated church meetings in Fuzhou, Fujian province, that may be considered the beginning of the local churches. During his thirty years of ministry, Nee published many books expounding the Bible. He established churches throughout China and held many conferences to train Bible students and church workers. Following the Communist Revolution, Nee was persecuted and imprisoned for his faith and spent the last twenty years of his life in prison. He was honoured by Christopher H. Smith (R–NJ) in the US Congress on July 30, 2009.
Family and childhood
Watchman Nee was born on November 4, 1903, the third of nine children of Ni Weng-hsiu, a well-respected officer in the Imperial Customs Service, and Lin He-Ping (Peace Lin), who excelled as a child at an American-staffed Methodist mission school. His grandfather was a gifted Anglican preacher. During a stint at the Chinese Western Girls' School in Shanghai to improve her English, Lin He-Ping met Dora Yu, a young woman who gave up a potential career in medicine to serve as an evangelist and preacher.
Since Nee's parents were both Methodists, he was baptized by a bishop of the Methodist Church as an infant.
Early schooling
In 1916, at age 13, Nee entered the Church Missionary Society Vernacular Middle School in Fuzhou, Fujian province to begin his Western-style education. He then went on to the middle school at Trinity College in Fuzhou, where he demonstrated great intelligence and ambition. Among his classmates was Wilson Wang, brother of one of Watchman Nee's good friends, Leland Wang. The two boys completed college despite severe flooding which brought cholera and plague and hardship to their region. In the final examinations, the 2 boys scored almost the same marks with Wilson Wang topping the class, followed closely by Watchman Nee in second place.<ref name="Lee, Joseph Tse-Hei 2005">Lee, Joseph Tse-Hei. Watchman Nee and the Little Flock Movement in Maoist China.'Church History 74:1 (2005)</ref>
Conversion and training
In the spring of 1920, when Nee was 17, Dora Yu was invited to hold ten days of revival meetings in the Church of Heavenly Peace in Fuzhou. After Nee's mother attended these meetings, she was moved to apologize to her son for a previous incident of unjust punishment. Her action impressed Nee so much that he determined to attend the next day's evangelistic meetings to see what was taking place there. After returning from the meeting, according to Nee's own account:
As a student at Trinity College, Nee began to speak to his classmates concerning his salvation experience. Later, he recounted:
After his conversion, Nee desired to be trained as a Christian worker. He first attended Dora Yu's Bible Institute in Shanghai, though he was still a high school student. However, he was dismissed due to his bad and lazy habits, such as sleeping in late. Eventually, Nee's seeking to improve his character brought him into close contact with a British missionary Margaret E. Barber who became his teacher and mentor.Lee, Joseph Tse-Hei. Watchman Nee and the Little Flock Movement in Maoist China. Church History 74:1 (2005), 73. Nee would visit Barber on a weekly basis in order to receive spiritual help. Barber treated Nee as a young learner and frequently administered strict discipline. When she died in 1930, Barber left all of her belongings to Nee, who wrote:
The Plymouth Brethren connection
Through Barber, Watchman Nee was introduced to the writings of D.M. Panton, Robert Govett, G.H. Pember, Jessie Penn-Lewis, T. Austin-Sparks, and others. In addition, he acquired books from Plymouth Brethren teachers like John Nelson Darby, William Kelly, and C.H. Mackintosh. Eventually, his personal library encompassed over three thousand titles on church history, spiritual growth, and Bible commentary, and he became intimately familiar with the Bible through diligent study using many different methods. In the early days of his ministry, he is said to have spent one-third of his income on personal needs, one-third to assist others, and the remaining third on spiritual books. He was known for his ability to select, comprehend, discern, and memorize relevant material, and grasp and retain the main points of a book while reading.
Nee derived many of his ideas, including plural eldership, disavowal of a clergy-laity distinction, and worship centered around the Lord's Supper, from the Plymouth Brethren. From 1930 to 1935, his movement interacted internationally with the Raven-Taylor group of Exclusive Brethren led by James Taylor, Sr. This group "recognized" the Local Church movement as a parallel work of God, albeit one that had developed independently. Nee refused, however, to follow their practice of isolating themselves from other Christians and rejected their ban on celebrating The Lord's Supper with other Christians. Matters came to a head when Exclusive Brethren leaders learned that during his 1933 visits to the United Kingdom and the United States Nee had broken bread with Honor Oak Christian Fellowship associated with the independent ministry of T. Austin-Sparks and with non-Brethren missionaries whom Nee had known in China. After a series of communications Nee received a letter dated 31 August 1935, signed by leading Brethren, severing fellowship with him and his movement.
Marriage
As a teenager, Nee fell in love with Charity Chang. Their two families had been friends for three generations. When Nee became a Christian, Charity ridiculed Jesus in Nee's presence. This bothered him. Eventually, after much struggling, Nee felt he needed to give up on their relationship. Ten years later, after finishing her university education, Charity became a Christian. She began attending church meetings in Shanghai in 1934. In the same year, during Nee's fourth "Overcomer Conference" in Hangzhou, the two were married. Charity cared for Nee in his frequent illness and was the only visitor Nee was permitted during his imprisonment. They had no children.
Ministry
In 1936, before a group of fellow workers, Watchman Nee outlined the commission of his ministry:
Nee began to write and publish at a very early age. In 1923, he began to publish the magazine The Present Testimony, and in 1925, he started another magazine entitled The Christian. It was also in 1925 when Nee changed his name from Ni Shu-tsu to Ni To-sheng (English translation: Watchman Nee). At age 21, Nee established the first "local church" in Sitiawan, Malaysia while visiting his mother, who had moved there from China. In 1926, Nee established up another local church in Shanghai, which became the center of his work in China. By 1932, Nee's practice of meeting as local churches spread throughout China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. He maintained this pattern until his imprisonment.
In 1928, Nee published a three-volume book entitled The Spiritual Man. In February of the same year, Nee held his first "Overcomer Conference" in Shanghai. In January 1934, Nee called a special conference on the subjects of "Christ as the Centrality and Universality of God" and "The Overcomers". According to Nee, this was a turning point for him in his ministry. He said, "My Christian life took a big turn from doctrines and knowledge to a living person, Christ, who is God's centrality and universality."
In February 1934, Nee gave a series of talks in which he defined and expounded the practice of the local churches, stating that in the Bible, the church is never divided into regions and never denominated based on a teaching or doctrine. These talks were eventually published in the book The Assembly Life. In May of the same year, Nee encouraged Witness Lee to move to Shanghai from Yantai in order to join him and Ruth Lee in their work editing Nee's publications.
In 1938, Nee traveled to Europe and gave messages that were later published as The Normal Christian Life. Upon his return, Nee gave a conference on the Body of Christ. According to Nee, this was the second turn in his ministry. Nee recounted, "My first turn was to know Christ, and my second turn was to know His Body. To know Christ is only half of what the believers need. The believers also must know the Body of Christ. Christ is the head, and He is also the Body."
In 1939, Nee became involved with his second brother's failing pharmaceutical company. Although acquiescing to family pressure, Nee also saw this as an opportunity to support his many co-workers who were suffering great poverty and hardship during the Second World War. Nee took over full management of the factory, reorganized it, and began to employ many local church members from Shanghai. At this time, some of the elders from the church in Shanghai questioned Nee's involvement in business, causing Nee to suspend his ministry in 1942. Shortly afterward, the church in Shanghai stopped meeting altogether.
On March 6, 1945, Nee moved to Chongqing to oversee the factory there. There, he delivered a series of messages on Revelation 2 and 3 published as The Orthodoxy of the Church as well as messages on the Song of Songs. On September 9, 1945, the Japanese army surrendered in China, ending the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1946, Peace Wang and Witness Lee began to work to restore the church in Shanghai as well as Nee's public ministry there. Nee purchased twelve bungalows at Kuliang to hold trainings for his co-workers in the Christian work. By April 1948, a revival was brought to the church in Shanghai, and Nee resumed his ministry there. When he returned, Nee handed his pharmaceutical factory over to the Christian work as an offering to God, influencing many others to hand over their possessions to the work. Within a short time, the church in Shanghai grew to over 1000 members.
Persecution and imprisonment
The rise of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, with its doctrine of state atheism, caused Christians to come under great persecution.Adeney, David. China: Christian Students Face the Revolution. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press (1973). False charges and arrests were also brought against many foreign missionaries. Through intensive propaganda campaigns and threats of imprisonment, believers were influenced to accuse one another.Kuhn, Isobel. Green Leaf in Drought. Kent: OMF Books (1958).
On April 10, 1952, Watchman Nee was arrested in Shanghai by Public Security officers from Manzhouli, Manchuria and charged with bribery, theft of state property, tax evasion, cheating on government contracts, and stealing of government economic information. Nee was also "re-educated". On January 11, 1956, there was a nationwide sweep targeting the co-workers and elders in the local churches. Some died in labor camps, while others faced long prison sentences. On January 18, 1956, the Religious Affairs Bureau began twelve days of accusation meetings at the church assembly hall on Nanyang Road in Shanghai, in which many accusations were brought against Nee in large accusation meetings. On June 21, 1956, Nee appeared before the High Court in Shanghai, where it was announced that he had been excommunicated by the elders in the church in Shanghai and found guilty on all charges. He was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment with reform by labor. Initially, he was detained at Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai but was later moved to other locations. Only his wife, Charity, was allowed to visit him.
On January 29, 1956, Public Security took over the Nanyang Road building, and many of Nee's co-workers were arrested, put into isolation, and forced to repudiate Watchman Nee. Some co-workers joined in the accusation of Watchman Nee while others, such as Peace Wang, Ruth Lee, and Yu Chenghua remained silent and were punished with life imprisonment. Following this, mass accusation meetings were held across the country to condemn the "anti-revolutionary sect of Watchman Nee".Lee, Joseph Tse-Hei. "Watchman Nee and the Little Flock Movement in Maoist China." Church History 74:1 (2005).
Later imprisonment and death
One year before Nee's death in 1972, his wife, Charity, died due to an accident and high blood pressure; Nee was not allowed to attend her funeral. Charity's eldest sister then took the responsibility to care for Nee in prison. Nee was scheduled for release in 1967 but was detained in prison until his death on May 30, 1972. There was no announcement of his death nor any funeral. His remains were cremated on June 1, 1972, before his family arrived at the prison.
Nee's grandniece recounted the time when she went to pick up Nee's ashes:
Beliefs
Nee believed in the verbal inspiration of the Bible and that the Bible is God's Word. He also believed that God is in one sense triune, Father, Son, and Spirit, distinctly three, yet fully one, co-existing and co-inhering each other from eternity to eternity. He believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, even God Himself, incarnated as a man with both the human life and the divine life, that He died on the cross to accomplish redemption, that he rose bodily from the dead on the third day, that He ascended into heaven and was enthroned, crowned with glory, and made the Lord of all, and that He will return the second time to receive His followers, to save Israel, and to establish His millennial kingdom on the earth. He believed that every person who believes in Jesus Christ will be forgiven by God, washed by His redeeming blood, justified by faith, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and saved by grace. Such a believer is a child of God and a member of the Body of Christ. He also believed that the destiny of every believer is to be an integral part of the church, which is the Body of Christ and the house of God.
Nee had a unique blend of Brethren theology, the exchanged life theology of the Keswick conventions and his own east Asian insights into Christian theology. His well-known book, "Sit, Walk, Stand" focused on the believer's position "in Christ," an important feature of the Apostle Paul's theology.
Watchman Nee is often associated with Free Grace theology. Nee held that assurance is not to be placed upon one's sanctification and put a heavy emphasis on eternal rewards. Nee held that the "Outer Darkness" mentioned in Matthew is a temporal place for saved Christians who do not live in obedience.
Publications
In addition to speaking frequently before many audiences, Watchman Nee authored various books, articles, newsletters, and hymns. Most of his books were based on notes taken down by students during his spoken messages. Some books were compiled from messages published previously in his periodicals.
Watchman Nee's best-known book in English is The Normal Christian Life, is based on talks he delivered in English during a trip to England and Europe in 1938 and 1939. There he expressed theological views on the New Testament book of Romans. The English messages of "The Normal Christian Life" were first published chapter by chapter in the magazine "A Witness and A Testimony" beginning in the Nov-Dec issue in 1940. It was later published as a book by Witness and Testimony Publishers in August 1945 and advertised in the Sept/Oct edition of the "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine.
Some of Watchman Nee's best-known books include:The Spiritual Man (1928) Translated in (1969)Concerning Our Missions (1939) Translated in (1942)The Song of Songs (1945) Translated in (1970)The Breaking of the Outer Man and the Release of the Spirit (1950) Translated in (1961)The Normal Christian Life () (1938/1939) Published in 1940 (messages given in English)The Normal Christian Church Life (1938) Translated in (1965)Sit, Walk, Stand () (1957) Translated in (1971)What Shall this Man Do? (1961) Translated in (1975)Love Not the World (1951) Translated in (1968)Let Us Pray (1942) Translated in (1949)A Living Sacrifice (1932) Translated in (1950)Authority & Submission (1941) Translated in (1950)The Spirit of the Gospel (1949) Translated in (1971)God's Work (1940) Translated in (1967)Back to the Cross (1931) Translated in (1956)Grace for Grace (1949) Translated in (1968)How to Study the Bible (1956) Translated in (1968) Practical Issues of this life (1938) Translated in (1970)The Mystery of Creation Translated in (1981)
In addition to publishing his own books, other spiritual publications were translated from English and published under Watchman Nee's oversight. These included books by T. Austin-Sparks, Madame Guyon, Mary E. McDonough, Jessie Penn-Lewis, and others.
See also
The Lord's Recovery
Witness Lee
The Local ChurchesThe Normal Christian LifeMargaret E. Barber
Dora Yu
References
Further reading
Chen, James. Meet Brother Nee. Hong Kong: The Christian Publishers (1976).
Kinnear, Angus. Against the Tide. Eastbourne: Kingsway Publications (2005).
Laurent, Bob. Watchman Nee: Man of Suffering. Uhrichsville: Barbour Publishing (1998).
Lee, Witness. Watchman Nee: A Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry (1991).
Lyall, Leslie. Three of China's Mighty Men. London: Overseas Missionary Fellowship (1973).
Nee, Watchman. Watchman Nee's Testimony. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Church Book Room (1974).
Roberts, Dana. Understanding Watchman Nee. Plainfield, NJ: Logos International (1980).
Roberts, Dana. Secrets of Watchman Nee. Orlando, FL: Bridge-Logos, 2005.
Sze, Newman. The Martyrdom of Watchman Nee. Culver City: Testimony Publications (1997).
Wu, Dongsheng John. Understanding Watchman Nee: Spirituality, Knowledge, and Formation''. Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers (2012).
External links
Living Stream Ministry: Watchman Nee
Watchman Nee's Biography
Living Stream Ministry: The Collected Works of Watchman Nee
Living Stream Ministry: Additional Titles by Watchman Nee
ChristianWebsites.org: Watchman Nee
Biographical Dictionary of CHINESE Christianity: Ni Tuosheng (Watchman Nee) 1903 ~ 1972
Christian Fellowship Publishers: About Watchman Nee
1903 births
1972 deaths
20th-century Christian mystics
20th-century evangelicals
Chinese Christian mystics
Chinese evangelicals
Chinese evangelists
Chinese Plymouth Brethren
Chinese Protestant ministers and clergy
Chinese Protestant missionaries
Evangelical missionaries
Evangelical theologians
Evangelical writers
Local Church movement
People from Fuzhou
Persecution of Christians
Prisoners and detainees of the People's Republic of China
Protestant missionaries in China
Protestant mystics
Religious persecution by communists |
423675 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At%20Swim-Two-Birds | At Swim-Two-Birds | At Swim-Two-Birds is a 1939 novel by Irish writer Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It is widely considered to be O'Brien's masterpiece, and one of the most sophisticated examples of metafiction.
The novel's title derives from Snám dá Én (Middle Irish: "The narrow water of the two birds"; Modern Irish: Snámh Dá Éan), an ancient ford on the River Shannon, between Clonmacnoise and Shannonbridge, reportedly visited by the legendary King Sweeney, a character in the novel.
The novel was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. It was also included in a list, published by The Guardian, of the 100 best English-language novels of all time.
Plot summary
At Swim-Two-Birds presents itself as a first-person story by an unnamed Irish student of literature. The student believes that "one beginning and one ending for a book was a thing I did not agree with", and he accordingly sets three apparently quite separate stories in motion. The first concerns the Pooka MacPhellimey, "a member of the devil class". The second is about a young man named John Furriskey, who turns out to be a fictional character created by another of the student's creations, Dermot Trellis, a cynical writer of Westerns. The third consists of the student's adaptations of Irish legends, mostly concerning Finn Mac Cool and Mad King Sweeney. But even this is a jest — the first of many in the novel — as there's also a fourth beginning here: That introducing the Irish student's own discourse on the benefits of three beginnings, setting his own story in motion.
In the autobiographical frame story, the student recounts details of his life. He lives with his uncle, who works as a clerk in the Guinness Brewery in Dublin. The uncle is a complacent and self-consciously respectable bachelor who suspects that the student does very little studying. This seems to be the case, as by his own account the student spends more time drinking stout with his college friends, lying in bed, and working on his book than he does going to class.
The stories that the student is writing soon become intertwined with each other. John Furriskey meets and befriends two of Trellis's other characters, Antony Lamont and Paul Shanahan. They each become resentful of Trellis's control over their destinies, and manage to drug him so that he will spend more time asleep, giving them the freedom to lead quiet domestic lives rather than be ruled by the lurid plots of his novels. Meanwhile, Trellis creates Sheila Lamont (Antony Lamont's sister) in order that Furriskey might seduce and betray her, but "blinded by her beauty" Trellis "so far forgets himself as to assault her himself." Sheila, in due course, gives birth to a child named Orlick, who is born as a polite and articulate young man with a gift for writing fiction. The entire group of Trellis's characters, by now including Finn, Sweeney, the urbane Pooka and an invisible and quarrelsome Good Fairy who lives in the Pooka's pocket, convenes in Trellis's fictional Red Swan Hotel where they devise a way to overthrow their author. Encouraged by the others, Orlick starts writing a novel about his father in which Trellis is tried by his own creations, found guilty and viciously tortured. Just as Orlick's novel is about to climax with Trellis' death, the college student passes his exams and reconciles with his uncle. He completes his story by having Trellis's maid accidentally burn the papers sustaining the existence of Furriskey and his friends, freeing Trellis.
Genesis and composition
The idea of interaction between the author and his characters is not new, and one earlier example is Miguel de Unamuno's 1914 novel Niebla. An even earlier example is A Sensation Novel (1871), a comic musical play in three acts (or volumes) written by W. S. Gilbert before he began collaborating with Arthur Sullivan. (Details of A Sensation Novel reappear in Gilbert and Sullivan's musical Ruddigore.) The story of A Sensation Novel concerns an author suffering from writer's block who finds that the characters in his novel are dissatisfied. O'Nolan first explored the idea of fictional characters rebelling against their creator in a short story titled "Scenes in a Novel", published in the UCD literary magazine Comhthrom Féinne (Ir., "Fair Play") in 1934. The story was a first-person narrative ostensibly written by a novelist called Brother Barnabas, whose characters become tired of doing his bidding and who eventually conspire to murder him:The book is seething with conspiracy and there have been at least two whispered consultations between all the characters, including two who have not yet been officially created. ... Candidly, reader, I fear my number's up.
The mythological content of At Swim was inspired by O'Nolan's affection for early Irish literature. He grew up in an Irish-speaking home and although he claimed in later life that he had attended few of his college lectures, he studied the late medieval Irish literary tradition as part of the syllabus and acquired enough Old Irish to be able to compose in the language with reasonable fluency. His M.A. thesis was entitled "Nature Poetry in Irish" (Nádúirfhilíocht na Gaedhilge), although his examiner Agnes O'Farrelly rejected the initial draft and he was obliged to rewrite it. At Swim-Two-Birds contains references to no less than fourteen sources in early and medieval Irish literature. Most of the poetry recited by King Sweeney was taken directly from the Middle Irish romance Buile Suibhne, O'Nolan slightly modifying the translations for comic effect. For example, the original "an clog náomh re náomhaibh", translated by J. G. O'Keeffe in the standard edition as "the bell of saints before saints", is rendered by O'Nolan as "the saint-bell of saints with sainty-saints".
At Swim-Two-Birds has been classified as a Menippean satire. O'Brien was exposed to the Menippean tradition through the modern literature he is known to have admired, including works by James Joyce, Aldous Huxley, Søren Kierkegaard and James Branch Cabell, but he may also have encountered it in the course of his study of medieval Irish literature; the Middle Irish satire Aislinge Meic Con Glinne has been described as "the best major work of parody in the Irish language".
O'Nolan composed the novel on an Underwood portable typewriter in the bedroom he shared with his younger brother Micheál. The typewriter rested on a table constructed by O'Nolan from the offcuts of a modified trellis that had stood in the O'Nolan family's back garden. O'Brien's biographer believes that it was the unusual material that the writing table was made of that inspired the name of the character "Dermot Trellis", although there is no reference to where this information was found.
O'Nolan used various found texts in the novel; a letter from a horseracing tipster was given to him by a college friend, while the painter Cecil Salkeld gave O'Nolan the original "Conspectus of the Arts and Sciences". Before submitting the manuscript for publication O'Nolan gave it to friends to read. A friend wrote him a letter which included suggestions about how to end the novel and O'Nolan incorporated the salient part of the letter into the text itself, although he later cut it. The sudden death in 1937 of O'Nolan's father Michael O'Nolan may have influenced the episode in which the student narrator regrets his unkind thoughts about his previously despised uncle.
Publication history
At Swim-Two-Birds was accepted for publication by Longman's on the recommendation of Graham Greene, who was a reader for them at the time. It was published under the pseudonym of Flann O'Brien, a name O'Nolan had already used to write hoax letters to the Irish Times. O'Nolan had suggested using "Flann O'Brien" as a pen-name during negotiation with Longman's:I have been thinking over the question of a pen-name and would suggest Flann O'Brien. I think this invention has the advantage that it contains an unusual name and one that is quite ordinary. "Flann" is an old Irish name now rarely heard. The book was published on 13 March 1939, but did not sell well: by the outbreak of World War II it had sold scarcely more than 240 copies. In 1940, Longman's London premises were destroyed during a bombing raid by the Luftwaffe and almost all the unsold copies were incinerated. The novel was republished by Pantheon Books in New York City in 1950, on the recommendation of James Johnson Sweeney, but sales remained low. In May 1959 Timothy O'Keeffe, while editorial director of the London publishing house MacGibbon & Kee, persuaded O'Nolan to allow him to republish At Swim-Two-Birds. More recently, the novel was republished in the United States by Dalkey Archive Press.
Literary significance and criticism
The initial reviews for At Swim-Two-Birds were not enthusiastic. The Times Literary Supplement said that the book's only notable feature was a "schoolboy brand of mild vulgarity"; the New Statesman complained that "long passages in imitation of the Joycean parody of the early Irish epic are devastatingly dull" and the Irish novelist Seán Ó Faoláin commented in John O'London's Weekly that although the book had its moments, it "had a general odour of spilt Joyce all over it."
However, most of the support for At Swim-Two-Birds came not from newspaper reviewers but from writers. Dylan Thomas, in a remark that would be quoted on dust-jackets in later editions of the book, said "This is just the book to give your sister – if she's a loud, dirty, boozy girl". Anthony Burgess considered it one of the ninety-nine greatest novels written between 1939 and 1984. Graham Greene's enthusiastic reader's report was instrumental in getting the book published in the first place:It is in the line of Tristram Shandy and Ulysses: its amazing spirits do not disguise the seriousness of the attempt to present, simultaneously as it were, all the literary traditions of Ireland. ... We have had books inside books before now, and characters who are given life outside their fiction, but O'Nolan takes Pirandello and Gide a long way further. O'Nolan's friend Niall Sheridan gave James Joyce an inscribed copy of the book. Joyce declared it the work of a "real writer" who had "the true comic spirit" and attempted to get the book reviewed in French periodicals, although without success. It is thought to have been the last novel Joyce ever read. Anthony Cronin has written of the effect the novel had on him as a seventeen-year-old in 1940s Dublin, praising its "umistakable sheen of the avant-garde", describing it "breathtakingly funny" and noting "the deadly accuracy of the ear for lower middle class Dublin speech".
Most academic criticism of the book has sought to appropriate it one way or the other; critics like Bernard Benstock, who argued that O'Brien's embrace of myth and refusal of realism "ensnare[d] him with the second rank", have been in the minority. Vivian Mercier described it in The Irish Comic Tradition as "the most fantastic novel written by an Irishman in the twentieth century – with the doubtful exception of Finnegans Wake." Rüdiger Imhof has noted how works by B. S. Johnson, Gilbert Sorrentino, Alasdair Gray and John Fowles carry explicit references to At Swim-Two-Birds. Michael Cronin draws attention to the metafictional and game-playing elements of the book, comparing it to the fictions of Raymond Queneau, and responds to criticism that the book is insufficiently respectful of realist conventions:Contrary to what Benstock argues, what post-independence Ireland needed was not less but more of the type of playful, self-aware writing being proposed by Flann O'Brien in At Swim-Two-Birds. ... We would all be very much poorer without Mad O'Brien's narrative chessmen.Keith Hopper has argued that, contrary to the common tendency to favour At Swim-Two-Birds as "the primary defining text of the O'Brien oeuvre", the novel is in fact less, not more, experimental than O'Brien's second novel, the posthumously published The Third Policeman:At Swim-Two-Birds is best considered as a late-modernist, transitional text which critiques both realism and modernism in an openly deconstructive manner, and in the process comes to the brink of an exciting new aesthetic. I will argue that the metafictional techniques developed publicly in [the book] ... are imbricated and embedded within the texture of The Third Policeman.
In a long essay published in 2000, Declan Kiberd analysed At Swim-Two-Birds from a postcolonial perspective, seeing it as a complex imaginative response to the economic and social stagnation of 1930s Ireland and arguing that the fragmented and polyphonic texture of the book is the work of an author who is "less anxious to say something new than to find a self that is capable of saying anything at all." Kiberd suggests that the one element of the book which is not seriously ironised or satirised is Sweeney's poetry, and that this is related to O'Nolan's genuine if complex respect for Irish-language literature:What saved O'Brien from lapsing into postmodern nihilism was not his Catholicism which held that the world was a doomed and hopeless place, but his respect for the prose of An tOileánach or the poetry of Buile Suibhne, where language still did its appointed work. ... He was an experimentalist who was way ahead of his time: only after his death did his readers learn how to become his contemporaries.
In a 1939 essay titled When Fiction Lives in Fiction, Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges described Flann O'Brien's masterpiece as follows, I have enumerated many verbal labyrinths, but none so complex as the recent book by Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds. A student in Dublin writes a novel about the proprietor of a Dublin public house, who writes a novel about the habitués of his pub (among them, the student), who in their turn write novels in which proprietor and student figure along with other writers about other novelists. The book consists of the extremely diverse manuscripts of these real or imagined persons, copiously annotated by the student. At Swim-Two-Birds is not only a labyrinth; it is a discussion of the many ways to conceive of the Irish novel and a repertory of exercises in prose and verse which illustrate or parody all the styles of Ireland. The magisterial influence of Joyce (also an architect of labyrinths, also a literary Proteus) is undeniable, but not disproportionate in this manifold book. Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that dreaming and wakefulness are the pages of a single book, and that to read them in order is to live, and to leaf through them at random, is to dream. Paintings within paintings and books that branch into other books help us sense this oneness.
In 2011, the book was placed on Time magazine's top 100 fiction books written in English since 1923.
Translations
At Swim-Two-Birds has been translated into several languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, Hungarian, Swedish, Romanian and Bulgarian. The first French translation, Kermesse irlandaise, was written by Henri Morisset and published in 1964; another, Swim-Two-Birds, was published in 2002. The Spanish translation, En Nadar-dos-pájaros, was published in 1989 by Edhasa. The Dutch translation Tegengif was made by Bob den Uyl and first published by Meulenhoff in 1974. It was published again in 2010 by Atlas as Op Twee-Vogel-Wad. The book has been translated into German twice, once in 1966 by Lore Fiedler and subsequently in 2005 by Harry Rowohlt. The book has also been adapted as a German-language film by Austrian director Kurt Palm. The Romanian version is by Adrian Oțoiu and was published in 2005, as ' La Doi Lebădoi'. The Bulgarian translation "Plavashtite Chavki" by Filipina Filipova was published in 2008 by www.famapublishers.com
Into other media
Film
The Austrian director Kurt Palm made a film from the book in 1997. The title of the film is In Schwimmen-zwei-Vögel.
Actor Brendan Gleeson has long planned to make his directorial debut in a movie adaptation of the book. The Irish production company Parallel Pictures announced that it would produce the film with a budget of $11 million. Michael Fassbender, Colin Farrell, Gabriel Byrne, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Cillian Murphy have at various times been attached to star in the film. Gleeson confirmed in July 2011 that he had secured funding for the project. He described the writing of the script as torturous and that it had taken 14 drafts so far. As of April 2014, the film was still in development.
Stage
The book has been adapted for the stage on at least four occasions. The first stage version was commissioned in 1971 by the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and written by Audrey Welsh. The British theatre company Ridiculusmus toured a three-man adaptation of it in 1994–1995 and there was a 1998 version by Alex Johnston for the Abbey Theatre. A more recent stage version was directed by Niall Henry and performed by the Blue Raincoat Theatre Company in Sligo in November 2009.
Radio
The novel was adapted for radio by Eric Ewens and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 26 August 1979, repeated 2 November 1980. The director was Ronald Mason.
Epigraph
The Greek phrase found in the front-matter of the novel is from Euripides's Herakles: (existatai gar pant' ap' allêlôn dikha), English "for all things change, making way for each other". This may be construed as a consolation: "No matter how bad you feel, don't lose hope, because you can count on things getting better."
Notes
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1939 novels
Novels by Flann O'Brien
Novels set in Dublin (city)
Self-reflexive novels
Irish fantasy novels
Metafictional novels
Irish novels adapted into films
Works published under a pseudonym
Postmodern novels
1939 debut novels
Irish novels adapted into plays
Longman books |
423676 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominik%20Ha%C5%A1ek | Dominik Hašek | Dominik Hašek (, ; born January 29, 1965) is a Czech former ice hockey goaltender who mostly played for the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL). Widely regarded as one of the best goaltenders of all time, Hašek also played for the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, and Ottawa Senators in his 16-season National Hockey League (NHL) career before finishing his career in Europe. While in Buffalo, he became one of the league's finest goaltenders, earning him the nickname "The Dominator". His strong play has been credited with establishing European goaltenders in a league previously dominated by North Americans. He is a two-time Stanley Cup champion, both with the Red Wings.
Hašek was one of the league's most successful goaltenders of the 1990s and early 2000s. From 1993 to 2001, he won six Vezina Trophies, the most under the award's current system of voting for the best individual goalie. In 1998 he won his second consecutive Hart Memorial Trophy, becoming the first goaltender to win the award multiple times. During the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, he led the Czech national ice hockey team to its first and only Olympic gold medal. The feat made him a popular figure in his home country and prompted hockey legend Wayne Gretzky to call him "the best player in the game". While with the Red Wings in 2002, Hašek became the first European-trained starting goaltender to win the Stanley Cup. In the process, he set a record for shutouts in a postseason year.
Hašek was considered an unorthodox goaltender, with a distinct style that labeled him a "flopper". He was best known for his concentration, foot speed, flexibility, and unconventional saves, such as covering the puck with his blocker rather than his trapper. Hašek holds the highest career save percentage of all time (0.9223) and is seventh in goals against average (first in the modern era) (2.202), and the third-highest single-season save percentage (0.9366 in 1998–99). The record was broken by Tim Thomas in the 2010–11 season and again in the 2011–12 season by Brian Elliott, who now holds the record at .940. Hašek is the only goalie to face the most shots per 60 minutes and have the highest save percentage in one season. He did it twice while with the Sabres (1996 and 1998).
At the time of his retirement, he was the oldest active goalie in the NHL at 43, and the second-oldest active player in the league after Red Wings teammate Chris Chelios, who was 46. Hašek announced his retirement on June 9, 2008, but on April 21, 2009, he announced a comeback to professional hockey and signed a contract with HC Pardubice of the Czech Extraliga. On June 7, 2010, he signed with Spartak Moscow of the KHL and played the last season of his career with this team. Hašek announced his retirement on October 9, 2012. Hašek was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on November 17, 2014. He is also a member of the Czech Ice Hockey Hall of Fame and the IIHF Hall of Fame. His number was retired by the Sabres and HC Pardubice. In 2017, he was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history.
Early life
Hašek started playing hockey at the age of six in his native Czechoslovakia. As he explains:
In 1980, Hašek joined the top hockey league in the country, the Czechoslovak Extraliga, with his hometown team, HC Pardubice. He became the youngest hockey player in history to play at the professional level at age 16. He helped to win two league titles in 1987 and 1989. The next year, he was conscripted in the Czechoslovak Army and played for an army team Dukla Jihlava. After making his mark and eventually playing for the Czechoslovak national team, Hašek entered the NHL draft and was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks in 1983. At the time, NHL teams were wary of drafting players from behind the Iron Curtain who were often barred from playing in NHL by their countries. Consequently, Hašek was picked in the 10th round (199th overall) and was the seventeenth goalie selected. Hašek did not even know he had been drafted until several months later.
Hasek played on the Czechoslovakia team in the 1988 Winter Olympics where the team earned a sixth place finish.
Until 1990, Hašek played in his native Czechoslovakia for HC Pardubice and Dukla Jihlava. He won the Golden Hockey Stick, given to the most valuable player in the Extraliga, in 1987, 1989 and 1990. He was named the Extraliga's Goaltender of the Year for four consecutive years from 1986 through 1990. His American career began with the Indianapolis Ice of the International Hockey League (IHL), where he played parts of two seasons. His NHL debut with the Blackhawks finally came in the 1990–91 season, seven years after the 1983 NHL Entry Draft.
NHL career
Chicago Blackhawks (1990–1992)
In Chicago, Hašek spent time as the backup to Ed Belfour, and played only 25 games over two seasons with the Blackhawks, splitting time between the Blackhawks and the Indianapolis Ice of the IHL. On November 6, 1990, wearing the number 34 (31 was worn by backup goaltender Jacques Cloutier that year), Hašek made his first NHL start in a 1–1 tie against the Hartford Whalers.
His first victory came on March 8, 1991, by a score of 5–3 over the Buffalo Sabres, and on January 9, 1992, he recorded his first shutout in a 2–0 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs. During this time with the Blackhawks, his goaltending coach was Vladislav Tretiak, who was selected in the 1983 draft but was barred from playing in the NHL by the Soviet government. Hašek appeared in game 4 of the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals against the Pittsburgh Penguins, after Belfour allowed two goals on four shots in the opening 6:33, and had 21 saves. Although the Penguins won and clinched the Stanley Cup, Hašek's performance attracted the attention of the Sabres, who had considered trading for him earlier that season.
Buffalo Sabres (1992–2001)
After the Stanley Cup Finals appearance, Chicago decided to stay with Belfour and Jimmy Waite. Hašek was traded to the Buffalo Sabres for goalie Stéphane Beauregard and future considerations, which later materialized into a draft pick used to obtain Éric Dazé. In Buffalo, wearing number 39, he was initially the backup goaltender, playing behind Grant Fuhr. When Fuhr was injured partway through the 1993–94 season, Hašek was elevated to starter and soon developed into a top-tier goaltender. In 1994, he won his first Vezina Trophy, was runner-up for the Hart Memorial Trophy and shared the William M. Jennings Trophy with Fuhr. Hašek played 58 games with a league-best 1.95 goals against average (GAA), seven shutouts, and a .930 save percentage. He followed this feat by again winning the Vezina Trophy and again placing as a Hart finalist in 1994–95.
Hašek's success in the 1996–97 season was overshadowed by a conflict with then-head coach Ted Nolan. The conflict created a tense, clique-like atmosphere in the Sabres' clubhouse.
In game three of the first round series against the Ottawa Senators, Hašek removed himself in the second period and was replaced by Steve Shields. Hašek suffered a mild sprain of his right MCL, and the team doctor pronounced him day-to-day. However, the media and some teammates speculated Hašek was using his injury to bail out on the team. One such individual was Buffalo News columnist Jim Kelley, who wrote a column which detailed Hašek's injury and his conflict with Nolan, and questioned the goaltender's mental toughness. When Kelley approached Hašek for an interview after a loss in game five of the best-of-seven series, Hašek attacked the journalist and received a three-game suspension and a $10,000 (US) fine as a result of the incident. With Steve Shields in goal, the Sabres fought back against the Senators and took the series in seven games. However, Hašek did not play in the five-game loss in the following series against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Though General Manager John Muckler was named "Executive of the Year", he was fired for his constant feuding with Nolan. Hašek, who sided with Muckler, stated in an interview during the 1997 NHL Awards Ceremony that the team would benefit from replacing Nolan.
Despite winning the Jack Adams Award as top coach and being popular with the Sabres fanbase, Nolan was only offered a one-year contract extension by replacement GM Darcy Regier. He rejected this under the grounds that it was too short, and decided to part ways with the franchise. This upset many fans, who blamed Nolan's departure on Hašek's alleged attempt to rid him.
For the first six weeks of the next season he was booed so vigorously that arena workers would play tapes of a crowd cheering to help balance it out.
As the season progressed, the booing of Hašek ceased, as he posted a league-record seven shutouts in December and continued to play at an elite level. He won the Vezina Trophy again, as well as the Lester B. Pearson Award and the Hart Trophy for league MVP. He became one of the few goaltenders in NHL history to win the Hart, alongside Jacques Plante, Carey Price, Chuck Rayner, Al Rollins, José Théodore and Roy Worters.
Hašek played a career-high 72 games in the 1997–98 season, and set a team record with 13 shutouts. Six of these shutouts came in December, which tied the all-time NHL record for most in one month. He again won the Lester B. Pearson Award, the Hart Trophy, and the Vezina Trophy, becoming the first goalie in NHL history to win the Hart twice. He donated the $10,000 prize money after winning the Pearson Award in 1998 to the Variety Club of Buffalo. In the off-season he signed a three-year, $26 million deal, securing the highest goaltender salary contract at that time.
In 1998–99, Hašek averaged a career-best 1.87 GAA and .937 save percentage, capturing him his third consecutive Vezina, and fifth overall. He was also a finalist for the Hart and Pearson trophies. Though the Sabres did not have a stellar regular season and finished with the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference, they defeated the Ottawa Senators, Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs in the playoffs en route to a best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals against the Presidents' Trophy-winning Dallas Stars. The Sabres eventually lost the series four games to two, with the decisive sixth game being one of the longest Stanley Cup playoff games in NHL history. Hašek and Ed Belfour made 50 and 53 saves, respectively, in a sudden-death triple-overtime duel that only ended when Brett Hull scored a controversial Cup-winning goal with his skate in the goal crease.
The goal was not reviewed immediately, so officials did not notice Hull's skate in the crease until minutes later. After video reviews showed Hull's position, the goal was still upheld, leaving the Sabres infuriated. Hašek commented, "Maybe [the video goal judge] was in the bathroom. Maybe he was sleeping. Maybe he doesn't know the rule." The following season, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced that video replays would no longer be used to judge if players are in the crease or not, and that it would be a judgment call by the officiating crew. After the season ended, Hašek contemplated retirement because of a combination of injuries and a desire to become more involved in his family life. The announcement stunned many of his teammates, particularly Michael Peca and Jason Woolley.
In the 1999–2000 season, Hašek was hampered by a nagging groin injury. He missed forty games and failed to win a major NHL award for the first time in several years. Though he healed in time for the playoffs, the Sabres were eliminated in the first round in five games by the Flyers. In 2000–01—his final season with Buffalo—Hašek set a modern era record by collecting his sixth Vezina Trophy. He also won his second William M. Jennings Trophy. The Sabres played Philadelphia in the first round of the playoffs again, where Hašek outplayed his 1998 Olympic back-up Roman Čechmánek. In the clinching sixth game, Hašek recorded a shutout against the Flyers. In the second round, the Sabres played a seven-game series against Mario Lemieux's Penguins, which culminated with the Penguins winning the final game in overtime.
First tenure with the Detroit Red Wings (2001–2002; 2003–2004)
Before the start of the next season, Hašek was traded to the Detroit Red Wings in an attempt to lower the Sabres' payroll and to send Hašek to a more competitive team. He was dealt for Vyacheslav Kozlov, a first-round selection in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft and future considerations, which eventually became the draft pick of Jim Slater. During his first season with Detroit, Hašek posted a career-high 41 wins with just 15 losses, helping the Red Wings earn the President's Trophy with the league's best record. In the playoffs, he led the Wings past the Vancouver Canucks, the St. Louis Blues, the Colorado Avalanche and eventually the Carolina Hurricanes in the finals to win the Stanley Cup. During the Conference Finals against Colorado, he became the first goalie to be awarded an assist on an overtime game-winning goal in the post-season after passing the puck to Wings captain Steve Yzerman, who then assisted Fredrik Olausson in scoring the final goal of the third game of that series. He also set a record for most shutouts in a post-season with six, broken the year after by Martin Brodeur with seven.
That summer, Hašek officially announced his retirement so that he could spend time with his family and other hobbies.
However, after Detroit's first-round loss to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in the following season, he expressed his desire to play again. This created a difficult situation for the Red Wings, who had two years left on Curtis Joseph's three-year $24 million contract, which had a no-trade clause. Detroit was also under pressure knowing that the rival Avalanche would be looking for a goalie to replace Patrick Roy after his retirement. With Manny Legace also on the Wings' roster, Detroit now had three potential starting goalies.
In the 2003–04 season Hašek injured his groin after playing just 14 games. On January 9, he and the team agreed he should rest his injury for two to four weeks. Hašek privately told general manager Ken Holland that he would not accept any pay while he was injured. On February 10, he announced that he was not going to continue to play that season, surprising the Red Wings management. He eventually revealed that he refused about $3 million of his $6 million salary. In April 2004, he underwent groin surgery in Prague, and returned to his hometown of Pardubice to recuperate.
Ottawa Senators (2005–2006)
After his contract with the Red Wings expired, Hašek announced his intention to play for a Stanley Cup contender, and specifically named the Ottawa Senators as a possibility. On July 6, 2004, after trading Patrick Lalime to the St. Louis Blues, the Senators signed Hašek to a one-year deal.
During the 2004–05 NHL lockout, Hašek toured with the Primus Worldstars. Similar to the tour Wayne Gretzky and IMG formed during the 1994–95 NHL lockout, the Primus Worldstars Tour ran December 7–23, playing in seven different countries (Riga, Latvia; Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia; Bratislava, Slovakia; Bern, Switzerland; Karlstad, Jönköping and Linköping, Sweden; Oslo, Norway; Katowice, Poland) in ten scheduled games. The tour competed against all-star teams or club teams of each country.
Hašek played increasingly well for the Senators up until the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. During the season, he reached 300 career wins, and his GAA and save percentage were the second-best in the league. Upon departure to Turin, Hašek's equipment was accidentally left behind in Ottawa. This caused Hašek to miss a number of practices with the Czech national team. At the Winter Olympics, he injured his right adductor muscle while making a save in the first qualifying match against Germany, forcing him to leave the game after only 9 minutes and 25 seconds.
Hašek's injury caused him to miss the rest of the regular season and post-season, despite several rumours that he would return in time for the playoffs. He said that if he were to be re-signed, he would play for a base salary of $500,000 with bonuses.
After the Senators were eliminated in the second round, they opted not to re-sign Hašek.
Return to the Red Wings (2006–2008)
On July 31, 2006, at the age of 41, Hašek joined the Red Wings for the second time. He signed a one-year $750,000 US
contract, with added bonuses if the team succeeded in the playoffs. He posted 38 wins and a 2.05 GAA while leading the Red Wings to
the number one seed in the Western Conference. He also broke his own personal record by going 181 minutes and 17 seconds without allowing a goal.
Midway through the regular season, the team announced that to avoid injury and preserve Hašek for the playoffs, he would not play on consecutive nights. He played his first consecutive nights of the season on April 21 and 22 against the Calgary Flames in games 5 and 6 of the Western Conference Quarterfinals. Hašek won both games, clinching the series for Detroit. In the next round against the San Jose Sharks, the Red Wings were on the road and down two games to one, but Hašek held the Sharks to three goals in the next three games. His 28-save shutout in game six was his 13th in postseason play and sent the Red Wings to the Western Conference finals against the Anaheim Ducks. However, Hašek and the Red Wings lost in six games to the Ducks, who eventually defeated the Ottawa Senators for the Stanley Cup.
Hašek contemplated retirement in the 2007 offseason, but on July 5, 2007, he signed a one-year contract with Detroit worth $2 million with up to $2 million in bonuses,
reportedly turning down $5 million for salary cap room for the rest of the Red Wings' roster.
During the 2007–08 season, Hašek was replaced by backup Chris Osgood, who had originally been waived by the Red Wings to make way for Hašek before the 2001–02 season. When Hašek recovered and got back into his stride, Detroit chose to alternate goaltenders in tandem instead of designating either as the backup. Detroit head coach Mike Babcock announced that Hašek was to start in the 2008 playoffs. Through the first two games against the Nashville Predators, the Red Wings were victorious, but after a lackluster performance in the next two, Osgood was in goal for the remainder of the playoffs. Despite expressing disappointment at losing his starting position, Hašek maintained his professionalism in practice and continued to support his teammates, with Darren McCarty citing a close relationship between Hašek and Osgood. Eventually the Red Wings beat the Penguins in six games for the Stanley Cup.
On June 9, 2008, Hašek announced his retirement from the NHL, only five days after winning his second Stanley Cup with the Red Wings, saying he lacked the motivation for another year in the NHL. With Osgood, the two were awarded the William M. Jennings Trophy for fewest goals against on a team in the season.
Final years in Europe and retirement
In April 2009, Hašek once again came out of retirement and signed a one-year contract with HC Moeller Pardubice, the club where he started his long career. In the 2009–10 season he led his team to win the Czech league title. Hašek had three shutouts in the playoffs, one in the finals, while his Pardubice lost just one game in the playoffs before claiming 12 consecutive wins. For the 2010–11 hockey season, Hašek signed a one-year contract with HC Spartak Moscow.
On May 15, 2012, Czech website hokej.cz reported that Hašek had discussed playing for Piráti Chomutov after their promotion to the Czech Extraliga. On May 25, 2012, Czech sport website Deniksport reported that Hašek was considering a return to the NHL, possibly with the Red Wings or Tampa Bay Lightning. However, the start of the 2012–13 NHL season was delayed due to the 2012–13 NHL lockout and Hašek announced his retirement on October 9, 2012.
The Sabres retired Hašek's #39 jersey prior to a January 13, 2015 game against the Red Wings, making Hašek's number the seventh to be retired in Sabres history. In a ceremony held on January 27, 2017, during the All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles, Hašek was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history.
International play
Hašek's most memorable international performance came in the 1998 Winter Olympics, where he led the Czech national team to the gold medal. He allowed six goals in total, with only two of them coming in the medal round. Against Team Canada in the semifinals, Hašek stopped Theoren Fleury, Ray Bourque, Joe Nieuwendyk, Eric Lindros and Brendan Shanahan in a dramatic shootout win. He then shut out the Russian team 1–0 in the final game, stopping 20 shots. He was later announced as the best goaltender in the Olympics. After he won the gold, he was quoted as saying:
His play made him one of the most popular figures in the Czech Republic, so much so that residents chanted "Hašek to the castle!" in the streets, referring to the Prague Castle, the seat of the President of the Czech Republic. In response to this, Hašek called the president Václav Havel and jokingly told him that his job was not in jeopardy.
He also helped to inspire an opera (titled Nagano) about the Czech team's gold medal victory,
and in 2003, Petr Pravec and Lenka Šarounová named an asteroid (8217 Dominikhašek) in his honour.
In the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Hašek played for just nine minutes and twenty-five seconds, until he injured his right adductor muscle.
Despite his absence, the Czechs managed to earn the bronze medal with backup goaltender Tomáš Vokoun, which Hašek received as well.
Style of play
Hašek had an unorthodox goaltending style.
He was extraordinarily flexible and was jokingly described in a MasterCard commercial as having "a Slinky for a spine".
In order to cover the bottom of the net, where most goals are scored, Hašek dropped down on almost every shot. His "flopping" style was derived from him flailing in the crease, using every part of his body, including his head, to stop the puck. Hašek occasionally dropped his stick and covered the puck with his stick hand, whereas most goaltenders would use the glove hand instead.
In response to the speculation he received from his style, Hašek explained:
Hašek's unique style attracted fans to games.
Because of his flexibility, Hašek could make difficult saves that other goalies could not—an opposing coach once referred to them as "miracle saves". These types of saves include toe-stops and a maneuver known as the "Hašek roll". Hašek was also known for his strict regimen of conditioning. During the off-season between May and September 2006, he lost a considerable amount of weight to increase his flexibility. Hašek was one of the last goaltenders to wear a helmet-and-cage combo rather than a contemporary hybrid goalie mask. The last few included his former teammate Chris Osgood, who left the NHL three years after Hašek, Tim Thomas of the Boston Bruins and Rick DiPietro actually borrowed one of Osgood's helmets for a short time with the New York Islanders while he recovered from a facial injury.
Personal life
Hašek and his former wife Alena have a son named Michael (born 1990) and a daughter named Dominika (born 1995). Dominika is the lead singer of the electro-pop band We Are Domi, which represented the Czech Republic in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, finishing in 22nd place. In November 2012 Hašek announced his divorce after 23 years of marriage.
He divides much of his free time playing squash and inline hockey, where he plays defense. When he was younger, Hašek played competitive football as a midfielder, and was a junior tennis champion in Eastern Bohemia.
His brother Martin is also a competitive athlete and played for the Czech Republic football team AC Sparta Prague before retiring and eventually deciding to coach. Hobby-wise, Hašek claims that he has been a fan of professional wrestling since his Buffalo days, and says that he mostly follows his favorite wrestlers, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Don "The Rock" Muraco.
Because of his formal education, Hašek stands out among Czech sportsmen. He earned a university degree after studying history and the Czech language in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hradec Králové, which qualified him to be a teacher, and led him to teach high school classes. Hašek also had a brand of sportswear named Dominator Clothing, which was launched shortly after the Nagano Olympics in 1998. It also had two locations in Michigan for a short time. However, sales were low, and the Dominator brand was forced out of business in 2008.
In May 2001, Hašek founded the Dominik Hašek Youth Hockey League/Hašek's Heroes, and donated over $1 million to help underprivileged children in Buffalo play hockey.
He organized a charity hockey game in Prague in 1998, and donated the profits to hospitals in the Czech Republic.
Hašek was known to appreciate humor to keep team spirits up, and often jokes about his resemblance to Cosmo Kramer of Seinfeld. In the late 1990s, he was featured in a MasterCard commercial that praised his flexibility. On November 26, 2006, Mark Parisi's comic panel off the mark featured a comic about Hašek's childhood.
Throughout his long career, Hašek was represented by agent Ritch Winter.
Inline hockey game incident
During an inline hockey game on May 18, 2003, Hašek was accused of assaulting another player. He was playing as a defender for Bonfire Střída when he crosschecked Martin Šíla. The prosecutor in the case, Lenka Strnadová, ruled two months later that there was no evidence that Hašek intended bodily harm and recommended the case be treated as a misdemeanor, punishable only by fine (US$95 maximum), rather than a felony where jail time would have been possible. Hašek's lawyer Pavel Jelínek announced in a statement that media reports about the incident were exaggerated, with Šíla not having sustained any documented injuries. In October 2003, the country's top prosecutor overruled Strnadová, saying her ruling was unlawful because the case had not been properly investigated. The Pardubice prosecutor's office then investigated the case again, and reached the same decision as Strnadová.
Legacy
Milestones
Hašek earned his 300th National Hockey League win on October 15, 2005, in a 5–1 home victory with the Ottawa Senators over the Boston Bruins. He stopped 34 of 35 shots and was holding a shutout until Bruins forward Pat Leahy jammed a loose puck under him three minutes into the third period. He became the twenty-second goaltender to reach the milestone. He is the oldest goaltender in NHL history to post a 30-win season, and in 1997, he became the second goaltender to win the Lester B. Pearson Award for most outstanding player in the league (Mike Liut won the Lester B. Pearson Trophy as the league's MVP as determined by his peers in 1981). He is also the only goaltender to win the Hart Trophy twice for most valuable player, and was only one Vezina Trophy away from tying Jacques Plante's record of seven.
Records
In nine seasons with the Buffalo Sabres, Hašek acquired over 25 franchise records, including most all-time games played, wins, shutouts and lowest goals against average. He also holds the Sabres' record for most shutouts in a single season with 13 in 1997–98, and lowest goals against average in a single season with a total of 1.87 in 1998–99. During the Detroit Red Wings' championship run in 2002, Hašek set franchise records for most games played, minutes played, wins and shutouts in a playoff year. He holds several notable NHL records:
General
All-time
1st place – Highest career save percent (.922)
2nd place – Most games played by a European born goaltender (735)
6th place – Most shutouts (81)
7th place – Lowest goals against average (2.20)
11th place – Most wins (389)Regular season
First European goalie to lead the NHL in GAA (1993–94)
First goalie since 1974 to have a GAA below 2.00 (1993–94)
Most shutouts in one month (six in 1997–98)Playoffs
All-time
2nd place – Most shutouts in one season (6)
3rd place – Most shutouts (15)
10th place – Most wins (61)
One of the most impressive single-game performances by any player in NHL history came on April 27, 1994. Hašek made 70 saves in a four-overtime shutout. The opposing goalie was Martin Brodeur, then a rookie, who made 49 saves before being beaten by Dave Hannan and the Sabres beat New Jersey 1–0, which helped the Sabres to tie the series 3–3 in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Hašek's 70 saves set a record, which still stands, for the most saves in a game without allowing a goal.
Career statistics
Bolded numbers indicate season leader
Regular season and playoffs
International
Bolded numbers indicate tournament leader
Sources:
Awards
NHL
Nominations
Czechoslovak and Czech awards
International
Transactions
June 8, 1983 – Drafted by Chicago in the 10th round, 199th overall
August 7, 1992 – Traded to Buffalo for Stephane Beauregard and a fourth-round pick (Éric Dazé)
March 19, 1998 – Agreed with Buffalo on a three-year, twenty-six million dollar contract
June 30, 2001 – Traded to Detroit for Vyacheslav Kozlov, a first-round pick in 2002 (Daniel Paille) and future considerations
June 25, 2002 – Announced retirement from professional hockey
July 8, 2003 – Returned to Detroit as an active player
July 6, 2004 – Signed as a free agent by Ottawa
July 27, 2005 – Contract option exercised by Ottawa for 2005–06 season
July 31, 2006 – Signed as a free agent by Detroit
July 5, 2007 – Signed as a free agent by Detroit
June 9, 2008 – Again announced retirement from professional hockey
April 21, 2009 – Signed as a free agent by HC Pardubice of the Czech Extraliga
June 7, 2010 – Signed as a free agent by Spartak Moscow of the KHL
October 9, 2012 – Announced retirement from professional hockey for the third time.
See also
List of NHL statistical leaders
Notes
References
External links
Dominik Hasek at HockeyGoalies.org
1965 births
Buffalo Sabres players
Chicago Blackhawks draft picks
Chicago Blackhawks players
Czech ice hockey goaltenders
Czechoslovak ice hockey goaltenders
Detroit Red Wings players
Czech expatriate ice hockey players in Russia
Hart Memorial Trophy winners
HC Dukla Jihlava players
HC Dynamo Pardubice players
HC Spartak Moscow players
Hockey Hall of Fame inductees
Ice hockey players at the 1988 Winter Olympics
Ice hockey players at the 1998 Winter Olympics
Ice hockey players at the 2002 Winter Olympics
Ice hockey players at the 2006 Winter Olympics
Indianapolis Ice players
IIHF Hall of Fame inductees
Lester B. Pearson Award winners
Living people
Medalists at the 1998 Winter Olympics
Medalists at the 2006 Winter Olympics
National Hockey League All-Stars
National Hockey League players with retired numbers
Olympic bronze medalists for the Czech Republic
Olympic gold medalists for the Czech Republic
Olympic ice hockey players for Czechoslovakia
Olympic ice hockey players for the Czech Republic
Olympic medalists in ice hockey
Ottawa Senators players
Ice hockey people from Pardubice
Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic)
Stanley Cup champions
Vezina Trophy winners
William M. Jennings Trophy winners
Czechoslovak expatriate sportspeople in the United States
Czechoslovak expatriate ice hockey people
Czech expatriate ice hockey players in the United States
Czech expatriate ice hockey players in Canada |
423729 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism%20%28metaphysics%29 | Libertarianism (metaphysics) | Libertarianism is one of the main philosophical positions related to the problems of free will and determinism which are part of the larger domain of metaphysics. In particular, libertarianism is an incompatibilist position which argues that free will is logically incompatible with a deterministic universe. Libertarianism states that since agents have free will, determinism must be false and vice versa.
One of the first clear formulations of libertarianism is found in John Duns Scotus. In theological context, metaphysical libertarianism was notably defended by Jesuit authors like Luis de Molina and Francisco Suárez against rather compatibilist Thomist Bañecianism. Other important metaphysical libertarians in the early modern period were René Descartes, George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant and Thomas Reid.
Roderick Chisholm was a prominent defender of libertarianism in the 20th century and contemporary libertarians include Robert Kane, Peter van Inwagen and Robert Nozick.
Overview
The first recorded use of the term libertarianism was in 1789 by William Belsham in a discussion of free will and in opposition to necessitarian or determinist views.
Metaphysical libertarianism is one philosophical viewpoint under that of incompatibilism. Libertarianism holds onto a concept of free will that requires the agent to be able to take more than one possible course of action under a given set of circumstances.
Accounts of libertarianism subdivide into non-physical theories and physical or naturalistic theories. Non-physical theories hold that the events in the brain that lead to the performance of actions do not have an entirely physical explanation, and consequently the world is not closed under physics. Such interactionist dualists believe that some non-physical mind, will, or soul overrides physical causality.
Explanations of libertarianism that do not involve dispensing with physicalism require physical indeterminism, such as probabilistic subatomic particle behavior – a theory unknown to many of the early writers on free will. Physical determinism, under the assumption of physicalism, implies there is only one possible future and is therefore not compatible with libertarian free will. Some libertarian explanations involve invoking panpsychism, the theory that a quality of mind is associated with all particles, and pervades the entire universe, in both animate and inanimate entities. Other approaches do not require free will to be a fundamental constituent of the universe; ordinary randomness is appealed to as supplying the "elbow room" believed to be necessary by libertarians.
Free volition is regarded as a particular kind of complex, high-level process with an element of indeterminism. An example of this kind of approach has been developed by Robert Kane, where he hypothesizes that,
Although at the time quantum mechanics (and physical indeterminism) was only in the initial stages of acceptance, in his book Miracles: A preliminary study C. S. Lewis stated the logical possibility that if the physical world were proved indeterministic this would provide an entry point to describe an action of a non-physical entity on physical reality. Indeterministic physical models (particularly those involving quantum indeterminacy) introduce random occurrences at an atomic or subatomic level. These events might affect brain activity, and could seemingly allow incompatibilist free will if the apparent indeterminacy of some mental processes (for instance, subjective perceptions of control in conscious volition) map to the underlying indeterminacy of the physical construct. This relationship, however, requires a causative role over probabilities that is questionable, and it is far from established that brain activity responsible for human action can be affected by such events. Secondarily, these incompatibilist models are dependent upon the relationship between action and conscious volition, as studied in the neuroscience of free will. It is evident that observation may disturb the outcome of the observation itself, rendering limited our ability to identify causality. Niels Bohr, one of the main architects of quantum theory, suggested, however, that no connection could be made between indeterminism of nature and freedom of will.
Agent-causal theories
In non-physical theories of free will, agents are assumed to have power to intervene in the physical world, a view known as agent causation. Proponents of agent causation include George Berkeley, Thomas Reid, and Roderick Chisholm.
Most events can be explained as the effects of prior events. When a tree falls, it does so because of the force of the wind, its own structural weakness, and so on. However, when a person performs a free act, agent causation theorists say that the action was not caused by any other events or states of affairs, but rather was caused by the agent. Agent causation is ontologically separate from event causation. The action was not uncaused, because the agent caused it. But the agent's causing it was not determined by the agent's character, desires, or past, since that would just be event causation. As Chisholm explains it, humans have "a prerogative which some would attribute only to God: each of us, when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing – or no one – causes us to cause those events to happen."
This theory involves a difficulty which has long been associated with the idea of an unmoved mover. If a free action was not caused by any event, such as a change in the agent or an act of the will, then what is the difference between saying that an agent caused the event and simply saying that the event happened on its own? As William James put it, "If a 'free' act be a sheer novelty, that comes not from me, the previous me, but ex nihilo, and simply tacks itself on to me, how can I, the previous I, be responsible? How can I have any permanent character that will stand still long enough for praise or blame to be awarded?"
Agent causation advocates respond that agent causation is actually more intuitive than event causation. They point to David Hume's argument that when we see two events happen in succession, our belief that one event caused the other cannot be justified rationally (known as the problem of induction). If that is so, where does our belief in causality come from? According to Thomas Reid, "the conception of an efficient cause may very probably be derived from the experience we have had ... of our own power to produce certain effects." Our everyday experiences of agent causation provide the basis for the idea of event causation.
Event-causal theories
Event-causal accounts of incompatibilist free will typically rely upon physicalist models of mind (like those of the compatibilist), yet they presuppose physical indeterminism, in which certain indeterministic events are said to be caused by the agent. A number of event-causal accounts of free will have been created, referenced here as deliberative indeterminism, centred accounts, and efforts of will theory. The first two accounts do not require free will to be a fundamental constituent of the universe. Ordinary randomness is appealed to as supplying the "elbow room" that libertarians believe necessary. A first common objection to event-causal accounts is that the indeterminism could be destructive and could therefore diminish control by the agent rather than provide it (related to the problem of origination). A second common objection to these models is that it is questionable whether such indeterminism could add any value to deliberation over that which is already present in a deterministic world.
Deliberative indeterminism asserts that the indeterminism is confined to an earlier stage in the decision process. This is intended to provide an indeterminate set of possibilities to choose from, while not risking the introduction of luck (random decision making). The selection process is deterministic, although it may be based on earlier preferences established by the same process. Deliberative indeterminism has been referenced by Daniel Dennett and John Martin Fischer. An obvious objection to such a view is that an agent cannot be assigned ownership over their decisions (or preferences used to make those decisions) to any greater degree than that of a compatibilist model.
Centred accounts propose that for any given decision between two possibilities, the strength of reason will be considered for each option, yet there is still a probability the weaker candidate will be chosen. An obvious objection to such a view is that decisions are explicitly left up to chance, and origination or responsibility cannot be assigned for any given decision.
Efforts of will theory is related to the role of will power in decision making. It suggests that the indeterminacy of agent volition processes could map to the indeterminacy of certain physical events – and the outcomes of these events could therefore be considered caused by the agent. Models of volition have been constructed in which it is seen as a particular kind of complex, high-level process with an element of physical indeterminism. An example of this approach is that of Robert Kane, where he hypothesizes that "in each case, the indeterminism is functioning as a hindrance or obstacle to her realizing one of her purposes – a hindrance or obstacle in the form of resistance within her will which must be overcome by effort." According to Robert Kane such "ultimate responsibility" is a required condition for free will. An important factor in such a theory is that the agent cannot be reduced to physical neuronal events, but rather mental processes are said to provide an equally valid account of the determination of outcome as their physical processes (see non-reductive physicalism).
Epicurus
Epicurus, an ancient Hellenistic philosopher, argued that as atoms moved through the void, there were occasions when they would "swerve" (clinamen) from their otherwise determined paths, thus initiating new causal chains. Epicurus argued that these swerves would allow us to be more responsible for our actions, something impossible if every action was deterministically caused.
Epicurus did not say the swerve was directly involved in decisions. But following Aristotle, Epicurus thought human agents have the autonomous ability to transcend necessity and chance (both of which destroy responsibility), so that praise and blame are appropriate. Epicurus finds a tertium quid, beyond necessity and beyond chance. His tertium quid is agent autonomy, what is "up to us."
[S]ome things happen of necessity (ἀνάγκη), others by chance (τύχη), others through our own agency (παρ’ ἡμᾶς). [...]. [N]ecessity destroys responsibility and chance is inconstant; whereas our own actions are autonomous, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach.
The Epicurean philosopher Lucretius (1st century BC) saw the randomness as enabling free will, even if he could not explain exactly how, beyond the fact that random swerves would break the causal chain of determinism.
Again, if all motion is always one long chain, and new motion arises out of the old in order invariable, and if the first-beginnings do not make by swerving a beginning of motion such as to break the decrees of fate, that cause may not follow cause from infinity, whence comes this freedom (libera) in living creatures all over the earth, whence I say is this will (voluntas) wrested from the fates by which we proceed whither pleasure leads each, swerving also our motions not at fixed times and fixed places, but just where our mind has taken us? For undoubtedly it is his own will in each that begins these things, and from the will movements go rippling through the limbs.
However, the interpretation of these ancient philosophers is controversial. Tim O'Keefe has argued that Epicurus and Lucretius were not libertarians at all, but compatibilists.
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick put forward an indeterministic theory of free will in Philosophical Explanations (1981).
When human beings become agents through reflexive self-awareness, they express their agency by having reasons for acting, to which they assign weights. Choosing the dimensions of one's identity is a special case, in which the assigning of weight to a dimension is partly self-constitutive. But all acting for reasons is constitutive of the self in a broader sense, namely, by its shaping one's character and personality in a manner analogous to the shaping that law undergoes through the precedent set by earlier court decisions. Just as a judge does not merely apply the law but to some degree makes it through judicial discretion, so too a person does not merely discover weights but assigns them; one not only weighs reasons but also weights them. Set in train is a process of building a framework for future decisions that we are tentatively committed to.
The lifelong process of self-definition in this broader sense is construed indeterministically by Nozick. The weighting is "up to us" in the sense that it is undetermined by antecedent causal factors, even though subsequent action is fully caused by the reasons one has accepted. He compares assigning weights in this deterministic sense to "the currently orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics", following von Neumann in understanding a quantum mechanical system as in a superposition or probability mixture of states, which changes continuously in accordance with quantum mechanical equations of motion and discontinuously via measurement or observation that "collapses the wave packet" from a superposition to a particular state. Analogously, a person before decision has reasons without fixed weights: he is in a superposition of weights. The process of decision reduces the superposition to a particular state that causes action.
Robert Kane
One particularly influential contemporary theory of libertarian free will is that of Robert Kane. Kane argues that "(1) the existence of alternative possibilities (or the agent's power to do otherwise) is a necessary condition for acting freely, and that (2) determinism is not compatible with alternative possibilities (it precludes the power to do otherwise)". It is important to note that the crux of Kane's position is grounded not in a defense of alternative possibilities (AP) but in the notion of what Kane refers to as ultimate responsibility (UR). Thus, AP is a necessary but insufficient criterion for free will. It is necessary that there be (metaphysically) real alternatives for our actions, but that is not enough; our actions could be random without being in our control. The control is found in "ultimate responsibility".
Ultimate responsibility entails that agents must be the ultimate creators (or originators) and sustainers of their own ends and purposes. There must be more than one way for a person's life to turn out (AP). More importantly, whichever way it turns out must be based in the person's willing actions. Kane defines it as follows:
In short, "an agent must be responsible for anything that is a sufficient reason (condition, cause or motive) for the action's occurring."
What allows for ultimacy of creation in Kane's picture are what he refers to as "self-forming actions" or SFAs—those moments of indecision during which people experience conflicting wills. These SFAs are the undetermined, regress-stopping voluntary actions or refraining in the life histories of agents that are required for UR. UR does not require that every act done of our own free will be undetermined and thus that, for every act or choice, we could have done otherwise; it requires only that certain of our choices and actions be undetermined (and thus that we could have done otherwise), namely SFAs. These form our character or nature; they inform our future choices, reasons and motivations in action. If a person has had the opportunity to make a character-forming decision (SFA), they are responsible for the actions that are a result of their character.
Critique
Randolph Clarke objects that Kane's depiction of free will is not truly libertarian but rather a form of compatibilism. The objection asserts that although the outcome of an SFA is not determined, one's history up to the event is; so the fact that an SFA will occur is also determined. The outcome of the SFA is based on chance, and from that point on one's life is determined. This kind of freedom, says Clarke, is no different from the kind of freedom argued for by compatibilists, who assert that even though our actions are determined, they are free because they are in accordance with our own wills, much like the outcome of an SFA.
Kane responds that the difference between causal indeterminism and compatibilism is "ultimate control—the originative control exercised by agents when it is 'up to them' which of a set of possible choices or actions will now occur, and up to no one and nothing else over which the agents themselves do not also have control". UR assures that the sufficient conditions for one's actions do not lie before one's own birth.
Galen Strawson holds that there is a fundamental sense in which free will is impossible, whether determinism is true or not. He argues for this position with what he calls his "basic argument", which aims to show that no-one is ever ultimately morally responsible for their actions, and hence that no one has free will in the sense that usually concerns us.
In his book defending compatibilism, Freedom Evolves, Daniel Dennett spends a chapter criticising Kane's theory. Kane believes freedom is based on certain rare and exceptional events, which he calls self-forming actions or SFA's. Dennett notes that there is no guarantee such an event will occur in an individual's life. If it does not, the individual does not in fact have free will at all, according to Kane. Yet they will seem the same as anyone else. Dennett finds an essentially indetectable notion of free will to be incredible.
See also
Actual idealism
Bayesian inference
Benjamin Libet
Free will theorem
Ilya Prigogine
Many-worlds interpretation
Newcomb's paradox
Philosophical zombie
Stochastic
Voluntarism
References
Further reading
Clarke, Randolph (2003). Libertarian Accounts of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press. .
Kane, Robert (1998). The Significance of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press. .
External links
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Peter Van Inwagen: The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom
Collection of papers on various aspects of Free Will and Determinism hosted by Ted Honderich
Information Philosopher
MindPapers Collection of articles on Libertarianism about Free Will
Determinism
Epicureanism
Free will
Metaphysical |
423732 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim%20Howard | Tim Howard | Timothy Matthew Howard (born March 6, 1979) is an American former professional soccer player who played as a goalkeeper. He last played for USL Championship club Memphis 901 FC, a club of which he is a minority owner and sporting director. He is also international ambassador in the US for former club Everton. Widely considered as one of the greatest goalkeepers from North America, he holds the World Cup record for most saves in a match with 16.
Howard began his career with the North Jersey Imperials, before making a move to the MetroStars. He was signed by English Premier League club Manchester United in 2003, replacing Fabian Barthez as the team's first-choice keeper. In his second season at the club, Howard competed for the first-choice spot with Roy Carroll. Howard enjoyed relative success with the club, as they won the 2003 FA Community Shield, the 2003–04 FA Cup and the 2005–06 League Cup.
After United signed goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar in 2005, Howard would only play once more for United before going on loan to Everton in 2006 and eventually signing permanently with them in February 2007. On January 4, 2012, Howard scored against Bolton Wanderers, making him only the fourth goalkeeper to score a goal in the Premier League. In 2016, Howard made his return to MLS, signing for the Colorado Rapids. He played for three years for the Rapids before hanging up his gloves in October 2019. He became the sporting director of USL Championship side Memphis 901 FC in January 2020 and came out of retirement to play briefly for them in March 2020.
Howard is the most capped goalkeeper of all-time for the United States men's national team, with 121 caps since 2002 until his international retirement in 2017. He was an unused substitute for the 2006 FIFA World Cup but later established himself as first-choice keeper of the United States' international tournament games beginning with the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, in which the U.S. ended as runner-up against Brazil. He started all of the team's 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cup games. The team reached the Round of 16 on both occasions, and during the latter Howard set a World Cup record for most saves in a match, with 16 against Belgium.
Early life
Howard was born in North Brunswick, New Jersey, the son of African-American truck driver Matthew Howard and his Hungarian wife Esther (née Fekete), who worked for a container packing distributor. His father moved out "before [Howard] formed [his] first memory" and his parents divorced when Howard was three. Afterwards, Howard lived with his mother. Howard was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome and OCD when he was in the sixth grade.
In 1991, before Howard was a teenager, Tim Mulqueen, a one-time assistant coach for the U.S. under-17 soccer team, saw Howard's potential at a single $25 soccer coaching session. He took Howard under his wing, offering him free soccer coaching. When Howard was 14 and 15 years old, Peter Mellor, the former professional goalkeeper who was coaching for the United States Soccer Federation and writing the curriculum for the first U.S. Soccer National Goalkeeping License for coaches, saw the 14-year-old Howard in an Olympic Development Player camp, identified him as a star of the future, and placed him in the Olympic Development Program. Mellor also helped Howard obtain his work permit appeal after he joined Manchester United from the MetroStars in 2003.
Howard attended North Brunswick Township High School. Howard proved a star not only in soccer as a midfielder, but also on the basketball court, where he averaged 15 points per game and helped bring his team to the state finals in his senior year. During high school, he played for Central Jersey Cosmos. In 1995, Howard was part of the U.S. under-17 squad.
Club career
In 1997, Mulqueen became the coach of the North Jersey Imperials, a team in the United Systems of Independent Soccer Leagues (USISL), and served as the goalkeeping coach for Major League Soccer (MLS)'s MetroStars; he considered Howard for a position on the Imperials. Howard signed with the Imperials and played in his first professional game before graduating from high school. He notched six appearances with the North Jersey Imperials.
MetroStars
Howard was brought up to the MetroStars by Mulqueen, who at the time was the MetroStars' goalkeeping coach.
Howard was victorious in his MLS debut with the MetroStars on August 18, 1998, making five saves in a 4–1 win over Colorado at Giants Stadium (his only appearance of the year). He later played in one game with the Nike Project-40 Team, a 3–1 win over the Staten Island Vipers at Giants Stadium on May 6, 1998.
With the MetroStars during the 1999 MLS season, Howard made eight starts in nine contests. Howard had a 1.58 GAA and won just one match in a season in which the Metros won just seven games. He also spent most of the international season with the United States Under-20 team, leaving the club to compete in the 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship in April and the 1999 Pan American Games in July.
Howard posted a 5–2–2 record with a 1.59 GAA in 2000, splitting time between the MetroStars and the United States Olympic team, also winning all three of his U.S. Open Cup starts that season.
Howard won the 2001 MLS Goalkeeper of the Year award, recording 146 saves and finishing the year with a 1.33 GAA, four shutouts, and a 13–10–3 record. He also received the MLS Humanitarian of the Year Award.
Howard played in 27 of 28 regular season games in 2002 for the MetroStars, recording four shutouts. He was named to the MLS Best XI for the second straight season. Before leaving the MetroStars in 2003, he appeared in thirteen games and had three clean sheets as the club challenged for first place during the season's first half.
Manchester United
Manchester United paid a US$4 million transfer fee to sign Howard in the middle of the 2003 MLS season, and he replaced Fabien Barthez as the club's first-choice goalkeeper.
Howard started off very well at Manchester United, saving the decisive penalty in the Community Shield against Arsenal. Other notable performances followed, including Bolton Wanderers and a home FA Cup tie victory over Manchester City. In March 2004, however, Howard's poor parry handed a last minute goal to Porto, eliminating United from the UEFA Champions League. The error appeared to shatter Howard's confidence and he was replaced by Roy Carroll. After a period of rest, Howard reclaimed his starting position ahead of Carroll for the 2004 FA Cup Final, picking up a winner's medal. He was the second American player to collect a winner's medal in the FA Cup, after Julian Sturgis of Wanderers in the 1873 final. Howard was also named in the PFA Best XI in his first season at Manchester United.
In Howard's second season with Manchester United, he started poorly, making several errors and was dropped again for Carroll. After Carroll made several errors as well, Howard regained the starting position but his performances were unconvincing, leading to Carroll regaining his place again, playing in the FA Cup final defeat to Arsenal.
At the end of the 2004–05 season, Howard signed a new contract, which was to run until 2009. In the summer of 2005, Manchester United released both of his competitors for the goalkeeper position – Ricardo López Felipe and Carroll. However, they also bought experienced Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar from Fulham soon after.
Everton
Howard joined Everton on loan for the 2006–07 season and made his debut for the club against Watford on the opening day of the Premier League season. He signed a permanent deal with the club in February 2007 for a fee reported to be worth around £3 million.
Howard made his 100th appearance for Everton against West Ham United, on November 8, 2008. On April 19, 2009, in the FA Cup semi final, he saved two penalties against his former club Manchester United in a penalty shoot-out to send Everton to the final against Chelsea. During the 2008–09 Premier League season, Howard set the club record for most league match clean sheets in a season. Howard started the 2009–10 Premier League season with four consecutive clean sheets, including away to Portsmouth where he helped his team secure a 1–0 win. Howard saved a Jermain Defoe penalty in injury time to help his side draw 2–2 with Tottenham Hotspur on December 6, 2009. Howard captained Everton for the first time in a 3–3 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on December 12, 2009.
During the 2011–12 Premier League season, Howard scored his first goal in professional soccer in a 2–1 defeat to Bolton Wanderers. His wind-assisted 101-yard clearance at Goodison Park made him only the fourth goalkeeper to score in a Premier League match since its formation in 1992. He described his goal as "cruel" and refused to celebrate out of sympathy/respect for his beaten opposite number, Ádám Bogdán.
In March 2012, Howard agreed a new contract to keep him at the club until the summer of 2016. On March 2, 2013, Howard's run of 210 consecutive Premier League appearances dating back to September 2007 came to an end as he missed a game against Reading with a finger injury. He was two games short of equalling Neville Southall's club record. In May, Howard kept his 100th clean sheet for Everton in a 0–0 draw against Liverpool in the Merseyside derby.
On December 26, Howard was sent off in a 1–0 defeat to Sunderland, which ended Everton's hopes of remaining an entire calendar year unbeaten at home. In April 2014, Everton extended Howard's contract by two years until 2018.
On February 19, 2016, Everton manager Roberto Martínez confirmed Howard was expected to serve as the backup to Joel Robles. Howard had recently been affected by a knee injury and a loss of form. Before his final match with the club, Howard made a speech before the fans, stating, "I will remain an Evertonian for life. This will always be my team, my club."
Colorado Rapids
On March 20, 2016, it was announced that Howard would return to MLS, signing a three-and-a-half-year deal with the Colorado Rapids and becoming available when the MLS transfer window opens on July 4. On June 28, Howard was given the number 1 jersey as he appeared in his first press conference with the club. On November 6, 2016, Howard saved two penalty kicks – with a third also being sent off the crossbar – against the LA Galaxy to send Colorado to the Western Conference Championship.
On January 22, 2019, Howard announced the 2019 Major League Soccer season would be his final season as a professional player. He retired in October 2019.
Memphis 901
On March 4, 2020, Howard announced his return to professional soccer, signing a playing contract with Memphis 901 FC in the USL Championship, where he also serves as sporting director and minority owner.
International career
Howard represented the United States under-20 national team at the 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship in Nigeria, playing in group stage victories over England and Cameroon, before a loss in the Round of 16 against Spain.
In July 1999, Howard was called up for the United States under-23 national team for the 1999 Pan American Games tournament. The United States ended the tournament with a bronze medal having overcome Canada in the Bronze medal match.
Howard was used as a backup to Brad Friedel at the 2000 Summer Olympics. On March 10, 2002, he received his first senior cap, against Ecuador. On May 2, 2006, Howard was named as one of three goalkeepers on the United States roster for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, but served as a backup to Kasey Keller. Howard became the team's first choice goalkeeper under Bob Bradley and started in the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup final, a 2–1 win over Mexico.
Howard was the starting goalkeeper for the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, including the semi-final in which the United States upset Spain, then the number one-ranked team in the world. Howard's eight saves earned him his first clean sheet of the tournament and the first shutout of the Spanish side since 2007. Following the United States' second-place finish in the tournament, Howard was awarded the Golden Glove for best goalkeeper.
Howard was the starting goalkeeper for the 2010 World Cup, in South Africa, and turned in a man of the match performance against England in his World Cup debut. Howard's distribution to Landon Donovan led to the game-winning goal of the final group match against Algeria, giving the United States passage into the round of 16. During the United States' round of 16 game against Ghana, Howard conceded two goals in a 2–1 loss.
After Mexico defeated the United States to win the 2011 Gold Cup Final, Howard made a controversial statement regarding the post-match ceremony. The trophy presentation was conducted entirely in Spanish, despite the tournament being held in the United States. Howard went on to say that it was a "disgrace" and commented further that if the final had been in Mexico City and the United States had won, the ceremony would not have been made in English.
On June 7, 2014, in the buildup to the 2014 World Cup, Howard received his 100th cap for the United States in a 2–1 defeat of Nigeria. On June 22, Howard was named man of the match for his display during the United States' 2–2 draw with Portugal; his most notable save was a reaction stop to deny Éder, having previously diverted Nani's shot onto the post.
On July 1, Howard was again awarded man of the match, despite the United States losing 2–1 to Belgium after extra time in the round of 16. During the match, he broke the record for most saves in a World Cup match with 15. After breaking this record, his performance was celebrated worldwide on the internet, with the hashtag #ThingsTimHowardCouldSave trending on Twitter.
Following the World Cup, in August 2014, Howard asked U.S. men's national team coach Jürgen Klinsmann to allow him to take a break from international soccer until September 2015; as a result, he missed the 2015 Gold Cup. He was called up again in August 2015, for the team's friendly against Peru on September 4, at RFK Stadium.
Howard was a member of the team that won the 2017 Gold Cup. However, following to national team's failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup later that year, after a surprise 2–1 away defeat to Trinidad and Tobago on October 10, he was no longer capped at international level. With 121 appearances, he is the most capped goalkeeper in U.S. men's national team history.
Personal life
Born to a Hungarian mother, Howard also holds a Hungarian passport. He is divorced from Laura Cianciola Howard, with whom he has two children. He is a devout Christian and has said, "The most important thing in my life is Christ. He's more important to me than winning or losing or whether I'm playing or not. Everything else is just a bonus." He is also involved with Athletes in Action, a ministry arm of Campus Crusade for Christ.
Howard was named MLS Humanitarian of the Year in 2001 for his work with children with Tourette syndrome, and was added to the New Jersey Tourette Syndrome Association Board of Directors in the same year. In 2014, the U.S. Tourette Syndrome Association described him as the "most notable individual with Tourette syndrome around the world" when he was deemed a "Champion of Hope" for the "tremendous courage he displayed in sharing his story on an international platform, educating the public on a disorder that is so seldom talked about, and encouraging young people living with TS to speak out about their experiences".
In 2014, Howard showed off his arm and torso tattoos for PETA's "Ink, Not Mink" anti-fur campaign.
Publications
Howard's autobiography, The Keeper: A Life of Saving Goals and Achieving Them (), was co-authored with Ali Benjamin and published in 2014. It describes his career and his life with Tourette syndrome and OCD. In the book, Howard says that his neurological makeup gave him an enhanced perception and an ability to hyper-focus that contributed to his success on the field. The New York Times book review said that "few are cooler or quicker than Mr. Howard" and that "the story is good, but reading it require[s] a certain tolerance for sports clichés". The Chicago Tribune describes Howard as the "rarest of creatures – an American soccer hero", adding that the book has "exciting recollections" and that Howard is a "gracious narrator, though here and there he engages in mild score-settling".
Club ownership
In September 2018, Howard became part-owner of English fifth-tier club Dagenham & Redbridge and American second-tier club Memphis 901. It was announced in December 2019 that Howard had taken over as sporting director at Memphis 901, and that he was already handling roster management for the club. Also, in October 2019 it was announced that Howard would be the first international ambassador in the United States for former club Everton.
Career statistics
Club
International
Honors
Manchester United
FA Cup: 2003–04; runner-up: 2004–05
Football League Cup: 2005–06
FA Community Shield: 2003
Everton
FA Cup runner-up: 2008–09
United States
CONCACAF Gold Cup: 2007, 2017; runner up 2011
FIFA Confederations Cup runner-up: 2009
Individual
MLS Goalkeeper of the Year: 2001
MLS Humanitarian of the Year: 2001
MLS Best XI: 2001, 2002
MLS All-Star: 2001, 2002, 2017
PFA Team of the Year: 2003–04 Premier League
U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year: 2008, 2014
MLS All-Star MVP: 2009
FIFA Confederations Cup Golden Glove: 2009
CONCACAF Gold Cup Best Save: 2011
CONCACAF Men's Goalkeeper of the Year: 2013, 2014, 2015
Fútbol de Primera Player of the Year: 2014
CONCACAF Best XI: 2015
See also
List of men's footballers with 100 or more international caps
Notes
References
General references
Staff (April 2006) "Tim Howard 1979–" Biography Today 15(2): pp. 60–70
Biography from Current Biography (2005), The H. W. Wilson Company.
External links
1979 births
Living people
American people of Hungarian descent
Citizens of Hungary through descent
Hungarian people of American descent
People from North Brunswick, New Jersey
African-American men's soccer players
Soccer players from New Jersey
American men's soccer players
Men's association football goalkeepers
North Jersey Imperials players
New York Red Bulls players
MLS Pro-40 players
Manchester United F.C. players
Everton F.C. players
Colorado Rapids players
Memphis 901 FC players
USL Second Division players
Major League Soccer players
A-League (1995–2004) players
Premier League players
Major League Soccer All-Stars
Designated Players (MLS)
United States men's youth international soccer players
United States men's under-20 international soccer players
United States men's under-23 international soccer players
Olympic soccer players for the United States
United States men's international soccer players
Footballers at the 2000 Summer Olympics
2003 FIFA Confederations Cup players
2006 FIFA World Cup players
2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup players
2009 FIFA Confederations Cup players
2010 FIFA World Cup players
2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup players
2014 FIFA World Cup players
Copa América Centenario players
2017 CONCACAF Gold Cup players
CONCACAF Gold Cup-winning players
FIFA Men's Century Club
American expatriate men's soccer players
American expatriate sportspeople in England
Expatriate men's footballers in England
Christians from New Jersey
American Christians
Hungarian Christians
People with obsessive–compulsive disorder
People with Tourette syndrome
Pan American Games bronze medalists for the United States
Footballers at the 1999 Pan American Games
Medalists at the 1999 Pan American Games
Pan American Games medalists in football |
423755 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative%20divisions%20of%20Portugal | Administrative divisions of Portugal | Portugal is a unitary state with delegated authority to three levels of local government that cover the entire country:
2 autonomous regions (Azores and Madeira), and in Continental Portugal: 2 metropolitan areas, and 21 intermunicipal communities
308 municipalities
3091 civil parishes () (except Corvo Island which only has a single municipality)
The Judiciary of Portugal has a separate geographic system.
The government structure is based on the 1976 Constitution, adopted after the 1974 Carnation Revolution.
The powers of the 18 Districts were removed when the government decided not to reappoint their Civil Governors in 2011.
The legal status of a city or town is granted only for ceremonial purposes, typically with smaller boundaries than municipalities. Some municipalities have several cities.
Starting in 2003, Eurostat has defined regions and subregions in the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) standard. These are coincide with some local government borders, but are otherwise only used for statistical purposes.
Districts
There are 18 districts in continental Portugal:
The distribution of Portuguese districts is nominally homogeneous, although there are outliers (Beja for example is 4.6 times larger than the smallest district, Viana do Castelo). But these divisions bely the inadequacies and disparities that exist within the country: the distribution of population and gross domestic product between territorial units is markedly different. The district of Beja, for example, represents approximately 11.5% of the area of Portugal, while Viana do Castelo is less than 2.5%. But, in comparison, Beja represents only 1.6% of the population of Portugal.
Portugal is primarily a seafaring nation, and traditionally human settlement has congregated along the coastline, so much so that the coastal districts, while being relatively small, were disproportionately larger by population. The six largest districts (with the exception of Santarém) are the six districts with the smallest populations and common character: a border with Spain. Of these interior districts, which represent 63.8% of the nation and have a population that is less than two million residents, is only marginally less than the population of the district of Lisbon.
The district system dates back to 25 April 1835, a creation of the Liberal government, and inspired by the French départements, with the objective to facilitate the action of government and permit access to the authorities.
The district is the most relevant and historically significant subdivision of the nation's territory; it serves as the basis for a series of administrative divisions, such as electoral constituencies or district football associations, as well as being a socially recognizable territorial division of the country.
In 1976, Portugal was divided into 18 districts and two autonomous regions (the Azores and Madeira), consisting of 308 municipalities (), which in turn were divided into 4257 local government authorities ().
Article 291 of the 1976 Constitution defined the districts as a transitional level of administration, awaiting the formation of the administrative regions. In the period between 2003 and 2013 the whole continental territory of Portugal was subdivided into metropolitan areas and intermunicipal communities, which now form the top-level administrative divisions of the continental territory. The powers of the 18 Districts were removed when the government decided not to reappoint their Civil Governors in 2011.
Autonomous regions
Since 1976, Portugal conceded political autonomy to its North Atlantic archipelagos (Madeira and Azores) due to their distance, isolation, geographical context and socio-economic circumstances. The regional autonomies have their own organic laws, regional governments and administration, overseen by a Regional Government (), that constitutes a Regional Cabinet, comprising a President () and several Regional Secretaries ().
The Azores () is an archipelago of nine islands and several islets that were discovered and settled by the Portuguese in the late 15th century. The Azores lies a third of the distance between Europe and North America, along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The government and administration of the archipelago is distributed between the three capitals of the former districts of the Azores: the regional parliament is located in the city of Horta (on Faial Island); Ponta Delgada (on São Miguel Island) is the most populous city and home to the Regional Presidency and administration; while Angra do Heroísmo (on Terceira Island), the historical and cultural capital, is the home of the Azorean judiciary and seat of the Diocese of the Azores.
Madeira is an archipelago that includes two principal islands, Madeira and Porto Santo, plus two uninhabited natural group of islands, the Desertas and Savage Islands (). The archipelago is located closer to Africa than Europe, is highly commercial and urbanized; its regional capital (Funchal) is developmentally comparable to urban centers in the Canary or Balearic Islands.
Subdivisions
The division of the Portuguese territory is established in title eight (Título VIII) of the Portuguese constitution: granting local authority to territorial collectivities with representative organs to affect the interests of the local populations. These collectivities are defined as autonomous regions, administrative regions, municipalities and civil parishes, but reserves the right of urban areas and islands to establish other forms of local authority. In defining the rights and privileges of these entities, the constitution also defines sources of income, that includes local heritage, budgets and equalization transfers from the State, in addition to defining the basic role of local government at each level.
Autonomous regions
Since 1976, Portugal conceded political autonomy to its North Atlantic archipelagos (the Azores and Madeira) due to their distance, isolation, geographical context and socio-economic circumstances. The regional autonomies have their own organic laws, regional governments and administration, overseen by a Regional Government (), that constitutes a Regional Cabinet, comprising a President () and several Regional Secretaries (). Their legislatures are designated Legislative Assembly.
Administrative regions
A plan to divide mainland Portugal in eight regions was defeated in a referendum in 1998. The metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto were created in 1991. A law passed in 2003 supported the creation of more metropolitan areas, urban communities and other associations of municipalities, but a law passed in 2008 abolished these, converting them into intermunicipal communities. Finally in law 75/2013 September 2013 the current two types of administrative regions were defined:
metropolitan areas (áreas metropolitanas) and
intermunicipal communities (comunidades intermunicipais).
Metropolitan areas
The Metropolitan Areas are territorial units formed by grouping municipalities, in order to economize on municipal investments and services. As of 2014, there are two metropolitan areas that correspond to Level III NUTS regions:
The Lisbon metropolitan area (Área Metropolitana de Lisboa), consisting of 18 municipalities with a total population (2011 census) of 2,821,876
The Porto metropolitan area (Área Metropolitana do Porto), consisting of 17 municipalities with a total population (2011 census) of 1,759,524
(Other cities have metropolitan areas as defined by commuting patterns, but do not have the same legal status and are all under 1 million inhabitants.)
Intermunicipal communities
The intermunicipal communities replaced the urban communities, the intermunicipal communities for general purposes and some metropolitan areas that were created in 2003, and abolished in 2008. The territories of the intermunicipal communities are (roughly) based on the NUTS III statistical regions. As of 2014, there are 21 intermunicipal communities:
Alentejo Central
Alentejo Litoral
Algarve
Alto Alentejo
Alto Minho
Alto Tâmega
Ave
Baixo Alentejo
Beira Baixa
Beiras e Serra da Estrela
Cávado
Douro
Lezíria do Tejo
Médio Tejo
Oeste
Região de Aveiro
Região de Coimbra
Região de Leiria
Tâmega e Sousa
Terras de Trás-os-Montes
Viseu Dão Lafões
Municipalities
Apart from the national territory, that includes mainland Portugal and the two archipelagos, the municipalities (municípios, colloquially known as concelhos) have been the most constant territorial subdivision in the past 900 years. While a term for municipality () appeared in the 13th century, to "express a community constituted in a territory of varying extensions, whose residents – the neighbours of the municipality – are granted major or minor administrative autonomy", the territorial division predates its use. Preceding the nation's independence, the oldest of the larger municipalities still in existence Coimbra and Santarém were founded in 1085 e 1095, respectively. São João da Pesqueira (in the district of Viseu) is the oldest Portuguese municipality, founded in 1055.
Since the creation of a democratic local administration, in 1976, the Portuguese municipalities have been ruled by a system composed by an executive body (the municipal chamber) and a deliberative body (the municipal assembly). The municipal chamber () is the executive body, and is composed of a president of the municipality and a number of councillors whose number depends on the municipality's population. The municipal assembly () is composed of the presidents of all the civil parishes plus a number of directly elected representatives that has to be at least equal to the number of civil parish presidents plus one, and which otherwise depends on the municipal population.
There are 308 municipalities in Portugal. They are usually named for their biggest city, or at least, their historically most important city or town. However, the municipality is usually much larger than the city or town after which it is named. The largest in area is Odemira with 1720.60 km2, the smallest is São João da Madeira with an area of 7.94 km2.
Nearly all municipalities are subdivided into civil parishes. Barcelos is the municipality with the largest number of civil parishes (61). There are six municipalities that have only one civil parish: São João da Madeira, Alpiarça, Barrancos, Castanheira de Pera, Porto Santo (Madeira) and São Brás de Alportel. The municipality of Corvo (comprising the Corvo Island in the Azores) is the only Portuguese municipality without a civil parish.
Civil parishes
The parish, in contrast with the municipalities, had their base in the ecclesiastical divisions that "had its origin in the fact that neighbours professed the same religion and professed their faith and divinity in the same temple". Between 1216 and 1223, Afonso II of Portugal began a process of legitimizing the Portuguese territory by conferring charters to nobles, clergy and municipal chambers (which would not be completed until after 1249 (under Afonso III of Portugal), making the parish the smallest division. From the 19th century freguesia began to refer to the civil/administrative entity, while the paróquia (Latin and 19th-century Portuguese: parochia) became affiliated with the religious entity.
Since the creation of a democratic local administration, in 1976, the Portuguese parishes have been ruled by a system composed by an executive body (the junta de freguesia, "parish board") and a deliberative body (the assembleia de freguesia, "parish assembly"). The members of the assembleia de freguesia are publicly elected every four years. The presidents of the parish boards are also members of the municipal assembly.
Before the 2013 local government reforms, the 308 municipalities were subdivided into 4,259 civil parishes. As part of the national government's attempt to control spending, in light of the sovereign debt crisis, in 2012 the government of Pedro Passos Coelho introduced a plan to reform the administrative divisions, in order to create efficiencies and save money. The plan envisioned the reform of the management, territorial geography and political form of how Portugal functioned at the local level, including specifically at the freguesia and município levels. In addition to the reduction of the number of representatives in the local boards, the plan also established criteria for the reduction, amalgamation or extinction of various civil parishes. The reform was implemented according to law 11-A/2013 January 2013, which defined the reorganization of the civil parishes,
Since the 2013 reform, there are 3,091 parishes in Portugal. The largest in area is Alcácer do Sal (Santa Maria do Castelo e Santiago) e Santa Susana with 888.35 km2, the smallest is Borba (São Bartolomeu) with an area of 0.20 km2.
Historical subdivisions
Portugal has a complex administrative structure, a consequence of a millennium of various territorial divisions. Unlike other European countries like Spain or France, the Portuguese territory was settled early, and maintained with stability after the 13th century.
The first division of the Portuguese territory was based exclusively on the Roman Iberian provinces of Hispania Tarraconensis, Lusitania and Hispania Baetica, established by Emperor Augustus between 27 and 13 B.C. The actual territory of Portugal north of the Douro, the Province of Tarraconensis, occupied half of the peninsula, while the Province of Lusitania, included the area south of the Douro. These Roman provinces were themselves subdivided into conventus iuridicus: Conventus Bracarum, its seat in Bracara Augusta (today the city of Braga); Conventus Scallabitanus, its seat in Scallabis (today the city of Santarém); and Conventus Pacensis, its seat in Pax Julia (today Beja). By the end of the third century, Emperor Diocletian administratively reordered Tarraconesis, dividing it into three separate territories (Tarraconensis, Carthaginensis and Callaecia), the latter comprising the northern Portugal, Galicia and Asturias. These divisions remained constant even after the Visigoths controlled the Iberian peninsula.
During the period of Al-Andalus and Muslim caliphates, the Iberian peninsula was divided administratively into provinces (kuwar) and municipalities (kurar), along the lines of the Roman-Visigothic delineations. Meanwhile, the taifa of Badajoz dominated the spaces of Beiras, Estremadura and a great part of the Alentejo.
With the expansion of the Portuguese national territory, following the conquest of new lands, the monarchy imposed a structure that permitted permanent dominion and organization of territorial space. There was also a tendency to demarcate lands associated with settlements or seigneurial properties; there was a constant history of forals (the royal charters) being allocated for unorganized territories, as a means to primarily establish fealty rights and encourage medieval settlement. Historically, the institution of the foral system was a way to divide the territory and to establish local administrative control (and not regional or hierarchical continuity). Similarly the parish, instituted by the religious orders that dominated the country, controlled local ecclesiastical power at the local level.
During the reign of King Dinis (1279–1325), the monarch instituted a series of inquiries throughout the kingdom which resulted, a few years later, in the configuration of the territory into provinces and municipalities. This was the first official recognition of the diversity of the country, and in the King's Testamento do Reino de Portugal he recognized the five "regions" of the nation: Antre Douro e Minho; Antre Douro e Mondego; Beira, Estremadura and Antre Tejo e Odiana.
Provinces
Dinis's successor, Afonso IV (1325–1357), instituted a system of six official comarcas, that reflected a concrete definition of these regions: Antre Douro e Minho, Antre Douro e Mondego, Beira, Estremadura, Antre Tejo e Odiana and Algarve. Between the reign of Afonso IV and the 20th century there were numerous alterations to the limits of the nation, a consequence of development and population growth. Further modifications to the limits of these provinces occurred in the Plano de Ordenamento da Mata Nacional da Machada (1864), the first scientific delimiting of forest resources, and the Projecto Geral da Arborização dos Areais Móveis de Portugal (1897), which modified land usage along the coast.
But, until 1832, the provinces did not serve an administrative function, although they did mark the differences in habits, linguistic peculiarities and socio-cultural characteristics. The province remained a military designation, chiefed by the General das Armas (Military Governor), expressly forbidden from influencing municipal affairs. During the Liberal regime, some of the liberal politicians conceived an administrative system where provinces were the top level tier of government, maintaining their former names, but with different borders. The debate over the importance of provinces only arose from fears that there would be an excessive concentration of power in the hands of governmental officers (). The adoption of the 17 districts (1835) instead of eight provinces was an attempt to dissolve such power.
In 1936, the provinces were reestablished as administrative divisions in Portugal. However, instead the six traditional provinces, 11 new ones were established: Minho, Douro Litoral, Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Beira Alta, Beira Baixa, Beira Litoral, Estremadura, Ribatejo, Alto Alentejo, Baixo Alentejo and Algarve. These were based in the natural regions identified by the geographer Amorim Girão in several studies he published between 1922 and 1930. The Estado Novo regime used the provinces to characterize traditional and rural Portugal. Each province intended to be a regional community, to which were given decentralized powers. Yet, the Districts continued to define administrative and political control, much like the organization of public security for the State, limiting the powers of local government. This organizational structure for the territory resulted in a loss of the sense of regional identity, which was only kept alive by oral traditions, based on regional references of origin.
There was a substantial difference between the European provinces and regions and the overseas colonies (the so-called overseas provinces).
Following the Carnation Revolution, the regions and provinces were abolished and the districts became the second level administrative regions.
Overseas
The term overseas province started to be used to designate each of the Portuguese overseas territories, instead of the previous overseas dominion, during the administrative reforms of the beginning of the 19th century, following the idea that these territories were as part of Portugal as the Portuguese European provinces. In the beginning of the 20th century, most of these territories started to be referred as colonies, although the term overseas provinces continued also to be used. Only after 1951, the term colony was completely dropped and the term overseas province was exalted by the government of António de Oliveira Salazar to shift the attention of anti-colonial protests in the United Nations. But the history of extra-local territories (colonies or provinces) within Portuguese administration dates back to the first settlements along the African coast, South-east Asia and Brazil, and were instituted as part of the 1832 reforms. The initiatives envisioned a comprehensive series of provinces that would have included European Portugal, archipelagos and extra-local dependencies in Southeast Asia, Africa and India. These colonies included:
Portuguese West Africa: an overseas province between 1951 and 1975, when it became the independent nation of Angola;
Cape Verde: an overseas province between 1951 and 1974, autonomous republic between 1974 and 1975, when it became an independent nation;
Portuguese Guinea: an overseas province between 1951 and 1974, until unilaterally declaring independence as Guinea-Bissau in 1973 (later recognised by Portugal in 1974);
Macau: overseas province between 1844 and 1883; included many of the overseas provinces of South-east Asia with Portuguese Timor in the administration of Goa, between 1883 and 1951); an overseas province between 1951 and 1975; special territory between 1975 and 1999, before being returned to China as a special administrative region in 1999;
Portuguese East Africa: overseas province between 1951 and 1974); local administration between 1974 and 1975, before it became the independent nation of Mozambique;
Portuguese India: an overseas province between 1946 and 1962, it was annexed by India in 1962 (and later recognised by Portugal in 1974);
São Tomé and Príncipe: an overseas province between 1951 and 1971); local administration between 1971 and 1975, before it became an independent nation in 1975;
Portuguese Timor: an overseas territory between 1951 and 1961, until unilaterally declaring independence as East Timor in 1975, it was annexed by Indonesia in 1976, recognised by UN as non-self-governing-territory under Portuguese administration between 1961 and 1999. After 1999 it was a United Nations protectorate until formal independence in 2002.
Initially the population of these overseas territories were made to exploit resources (minerals, spices, wood or slaves), but later there was a sense of evangelisation or lusotropolicalism, that facilitated the colonization of these lands. The first significant colony was Brazil whose history included a period as kingdom within the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves (1815–1822), before a political schism would result in its independence in 1822.
NUTS
The Eurostat-based NUTS system subdivides the nation into three levels: NUTS I, NUTS II and NUTS III. In some European partners, as is the case with Portugal, a complementary hierarchy, respectively LAU I and LAU II (posteriorly referred to as NUTS IV and NUTS V) is employed. The LAU, or Local Administrative Units, in the Portuguese context pertains to the 308 municipalities (LAU I) and 4257 civil parishes (LAU II) respectively. In the broadest sense, the NUTS hierarchy, while they may follow some of the borders (municipal or parish) diverge in their delineation.
See also
Subdivisions of Portugal
List of regions and sub-regions of Portugal
List of municipalities of Portugal (, LAU I)
List of parishes of Portugal (, LAU II)
List of cities in Portugal
List of towns in Portugal
ISO 3166-2:PT
References
Notes
Sources
External links
Lisbon Metropolitan Area
Greater Porto
Madeira's Regional Government
Azores' Regional Government
CityMayors feature
Current and Former Colonies and Possessions of Portugal from WorldStatesmen.org
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Portugal
Portugal politics-related lists
Decentralization |
423757 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Tomorrow%20People | The Tomorrow People | The Tomorrow People is a British children's science fiction television series created by Roger Price. Produced by Thames Television for the ITV Network, the series first ran from 30 April 1973 to 19 February 1979.
The theme music was composed by Australian music composer, Dudley Simpson, who composed music for two BBC science fiction dramas, Doctor Who (1963) and Blake’s 7 (1978).
In 1992, after having much success with running episodes of the original series in America, Nickelodeon requested Price and Thames Television for a new version to be piloted and filmed at Nickelodeon Studios Florida in April 1992, with Price acting as executive producer. This version used the same basic premise as the original series with some changes, and ran until 8 March 1995. A series of audio plays using the original concept and characters (and many of the original series' actors) was produced by Big Finish Productions between 2001 and 2007. In 2013, an American remake of the show premiered on The CW.
Premise
All incarnations of the show concerned the emergence of the next stage of human evolution (Homo novis) known colloquially as Tomorrow People. Born to human parents, an apparently normal child might at some point between childhood and late adolescence experience a process called 'breaking out' and develop special paranormal abilities. These abilities include psionic powers such as telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation. However, their psychological make-up prevents them from intentionally killing others.
Original series (1970s)
The original series was produced by Thames Television for ITV. The Tomorrow People operate from a secret base, The Lab, built in an abandoned London Underground station. The team constantly watches for new Tomorrow People "breaking out" (usually around the age of puberty) to help them through the process as the youngsters endure mental agonies as their minds suddenly change. They sometimes deal with attention from extraterrestrial species as well as facing more earthbound dangers with military forces across the globe keen to recruit or capture them for their own ends. One thing they lack is the capability to intentionally take another life. This pacifistic element of their make up is referred to as the "prime barrier" and any Tomorrow Person who causes the loss of a human life would be driven insane by the confusion in their brain. They also have connections with the "Galactic Federation" which oversees the welfare of telepathic species throughout the galaxy. In addition to their psychic powers (the so-called 3T's of telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation), they use advanced technology such as the biological (called in the series "biotronic") computer TIM, which is capable of original thought, telepathy, and can augment their psychic powers. TIM also helps the Tomorrow People to teleport long distances, although they must be wearing a device installed into a belt or bracelet for this to work. Teleportation is referred to as jaunting in the programme. The team used jaunting belts up to the end of Series 5, after which they used much smaller wristbands.
In the original series, the Tomorrow People are also referred to as both Homo Novis and Homo superior. The term appeared in David Bowie's 1971 song "Oh! You Pretty Things": "Let me make it plain. You gotta make way for the Homo Superior." This term came up as part of a conversation between Roger Price and David Bowie at a meeting at Granada Studios in Manchester when Price was directing a programme in which Bowie was appearing. Price had been working on a script for his Tomorrow People project and during a conversation with Bowie, the term Homo superior came up. Bowie liked the term and soon afterwards wrote it into his song. Price has sometimes been quoted as saying that the lyrics to this song were inspired by the series.
Alistair McGown of Screenonline cites the book The Mind in Chains by Christopher Evans as a primary source. Evans also became a scientific advisor for the series. He would be credited as such on every single episode but most people working on the show seem to recall that he only had involvement in the first couple of series. McGown also suggests a similarity between The Tomorrow People and the children's fantasy fiction of Enid Blyton.
While they reveal their existence to some, the Tomorrow People generally operate in secrecy for fear that normal people (whom they term "Saps", an abbreviation of Homo sapiens) will either fear or victimise them because of their special powers, or try to exploit them for military purposes. In order to defend themselves they must use non-lethal weaponry such as "stun guns" or martial arts; this is owing to their genetic unwillingness to kill, referred to as the "prime barrier". In early series they would have the aid of "Sap" friends such as Ginge, Lefty and Chris who would usually handle the rougher stuff that the pacifist TPs could not deal with. Also in the second and third series they become friendly with a psychic researcher named Professor Cawston who assisted them and vice versa.
Roger Price dreamed up the idea in 1970; he initially offered the format to Granada, where he was working, but was turned down so offered it to Southern Television, who expressed an interest but had concerns over the budgetary requirements. Finally, Lewis Rudd at Thames Television commissioned a 13-episode series, having seen the potential of the format and looking to replace Ace of Wands after its three-year run. At this time, ITV was keen to find its own answer to Doctor Who, although Price never really envisaged the show as such but more as an outlet for his own personal ideas and beliefs. Very early on, Ruth Boswell was brought in as associate producer and script editor as she had experience of children's fantasy drama (Timeslip and Tightrope) while TV dramatist Brian Finch was hired to co-write the scripts in view of the fact that Price had little experience of writing drama. Finch disliked the experience as he was not engaged by the material and found a large part of his time was taken up in trying to rein in Price and his very ambitious ideas. Thames enlisted the services of Doctor Who director Paul Bernard to help set up and oversee the first series. He would be credited as director for two stories but was unofficially a third producer. Bernard was very heavily involved in the creation of the memorable title sequence which involved a mixture of haunting images and facial shots of the main cast zooming towards the camera in monochrome, with an eerie theme tune from prolific Doctor Who and Blake’s 7 composer Dudley Simpson playing behind. He got inspiration from seeing billboards rushing towards him when driving. The sequence opened with a clenched fist opening out to signify a telepathic mind breaking out. Amongst the next shots were a human foetus, shadowy figures behind scaffolding and even the insides of a bell pepper (a somewhat exotic fruit in the UK in the 1970s).
Over its six-year run, the format would prove flexible enough to encompass various type of stories including traditional alien invasions adventures as well as entering into genres such as espionage thrillers, slapstick comedy, time travel, political satires, space opera and even on occasion more adult concepts than would be normally found in a teatime drama for children. As it was aimed at young people, it would often reflect popular fashions and fads of the time, but usually with a suitable sinister twist. For example, "Hitler's Last Secret" in 1978 involved the TPs investigating a sudden craze for wearing Nazi uniforms amongst teenagers (reflecting the actions of the then contemporary punk rockers) but is a precursor to Hitler being revived from suspended animation by a group of Nazis. The following season's "The Living Skins" saw aliens transforming themselves into fashionable plastic jump suits that would control and eventually kill the millions of people who wear them. The 1974 adventure "The Blue and the Green" sees the whole of humanity divided by a craze to wear blue or green badges and for a children's show. In 1977 Mike joins a pop band, "The Heart of Sogguth" whose hell-raising music will bring back the Devil when millions of teenagers are watching them on television. The popularity of the book "Chariots of the Gods" was also an influence on 1975's "Worlds Away" when it is revealed that the evil Kulthan had controlled and assisted the ancient Egyptians.
Series One
Price saw the lead casting as very important, as he wanted talented and attractive actors who would appeal to the young audience, but also be personable and easy to work with during the long hours envisaged in studio or out on location. Nicholas Young was cast as the group's leader, John, while Peter Vaughan Clarke was offered the role of Stephen after Price saw him in a Manchester rendition of Peter Pan with Lulu. Ruth Boswell wanted Lynne Frederick (later the last wife of Peter Sellers) for Carol, the female lead, but following a meeting with her, Paul Bernard felt she was a bit too upper-class and precious for what he had in mind, as he saw the character as being similar to Doctor Whos Jo Grant. They finally settled on Sammie Winmill who was relatively well-known for playing Nurse Crumpton on the popular Doctor at Large situation comedy (also a Thames production). The role of Kenny, the youngest TP, was given to Stephen Salmon after he had been discovered in a drama workshop while theatre actor Philip Gilbert was selected to provide the paternal tones of biotronic computer TIM. Making up the team were two Sap friends, a couple of bikers called Ginge (Michael Standing) and Lefty (Derek Crewe) who encounter the Tomorrow People when acting as henchmen for the villainous shape-shifter Jedikiah in the opening adventure. Stephen would be very much the show's hero and focus for the audience while John was something of an authoritarian figure who took his responsibilities for the species' future and welfare very seriously. Young was the only TP to be in every single episode and the actor was able to have some say in the production of later seasons as he was considered as an unofficial producer. Kenny was given very little to do and was often left behind in the Lab (due to being the youngest) while the others went off to have the actual adventures. Filming commenced in March 1973 with location work in Muswell Hill. Production of this first story, "The Slaves of Jedikiah" was much troubled, as the crew found they were unfamiliar with the technical demands of a science fiction drama. The first day in studio was disastrous, with virtually no usable material getting made and there was some tension between the cast and Paul Bernard, who was very authoritarian with them. Also, Nicholas Young banged himself hard into a wall while working on the darkened entrance to the Lab, which was being filmed inside the real disused tube station at Wood Lane (closed in the 1940s). Fortunately, he was not badly injured and able to carry on later that day after a recovery break.
Early publicity included a photo session of the cast with the Doctor Who star, Jon Pertwee, to indicate a friendly rivalry between the two shows. Look-in magazine would provide a great deal of coverage of the series and by July would have launched its own comic strip version (which ran on and off in its pages for the next five years). TVTimes also promoted the new show with an article on its first week.
The production procedure was very much standard in the seventies with a limited amount of location work (done on film) followed by a day in studio to record each episode on videotape. Even for the time, some of the special effects of the show were considered sub-par, largely attributable to its small budget. The first season was budgeted at approx £5000 per episode which was roughly half the cost of what the BBC were making Doctor Who for. Most directors on the show would rely heavily on chroma key to get their desired effects, but owing to the rushed time on studio days, the results varied greatly in outcome. To make it even more difficult, studio time was restricted as English law dictated that juvenile actors could only work a certain number of hours in a day.
Season one's recurring villain, Jedikiah, was originally devised to be a long-running foe (like the Master from Doctor Who), but after seeing the poorly-designed robot that was the shape-changer's true form, an unimpressed Price elected not to use the character again until the finale of series three which was planned at that time as the series' finale (the robotic form noticeably fails to appear). Despite these limitations, the series proved popular with its young audience who watched in large numbers, even denting the figures for the popular BBC magazine programme Blue Peter.
Series Two
The success of the first series saw another 13 episodes go into production quite soon after, but with a number of changes. Off-screen, both Bernard and Finch departed leaving Price to take more control as writer, director and producer, while on-screen Kenny and Carol disappeared (sent to the Galactic Federation's headquarters The Trig to work as ambassadors for Earth). Salmon was simply not asked back as there was a feeling the character had failed to work and his acting was considered wooden (plus Salmon had never been very keen to appear as he had no interest in acting), while Winmill's departure was voluntary as the actress was concerned about being associated with a long running series. In their place came student school teacher Elizabeth M'Bondo, portrayed by Elizabeth Adare. Adare initially thought her character was to be a teenage girl and made every effort at her audition to look and act like an adolescent. However, Price and Boswell were suitably impressed to change the Elizabeth character so that she breaks out at an older age due to a latent puberty. Elizabeth is uncovered by Stephen when working at his school, where she is doing her teacher training. This was the start of a near-annual event where a new TP would be introduced in the first story of each series, a handy way of maintaining interest for returning viewers and a convenient way for Price to re-establish the basic premise of the show for new audiences every year. Adare would stay until the end in 1979 but grew increasingly unhappy with the quality of later scripts. However, she knew how important and ground breaking it was for a black actress to be the female lead in a British TV production, so consciously decided to remain.
Filming of Series 2 began in late 1973 with Michael Standing returning as Ginge, but on the first day he fell off his motorbike and broke his leg, prompting a speedy rewrite whereby Ginge's younger brother, Chris (Chris Chittell), was now seen as the new Sap regular. Chris was mentioned in the dialogue as already being known to the Tomorrow People, so little in the way of changes had to be made to the script. Ginge's absence was explained on-screen by his having been admitted to hospital following a fall from his motorbike, reflecting Standing's real-life accident. Price later commented that he felt neither Ginge or Lefty had ever felt right for the format.
Series Three
In 1975, the third series added Dean Lawrence as gypsy Tyso Boswell, yet another character from a minority as Price was determined that the Tomorrow People could be from any ethnic or society background. Chris disappears after only appearing in one episode (his absence is never explained) while telepathic secret agent Tricia Conway appears in two stories before fully breaking out in the series climax which saw the young heroes menaced by old rival, Jedikiah. Viewers saw on screen why the youngsters have to maintain their secrecy and constant vigilance from the rest of humanity, as the British Secret Intelligence Service ruthlessly hunt them down for their own purposes in the opening adventure. This series also saw the group visit an alien world for the first time when the Galactic Trig dispatches them to help the telepathic population of the planet Peerie. Production on this story ran into trouble when Lawrence hurt his knee during location filming and the injury had to be included in the script.
A comedy script was attempted in the much-derided "A Man for Emily", which featured Peter Davison in his television debut and his future wife Sandra Dickinson, because Price was keen to get more into humorous writing. The negative backlash to this experiment resulted in a planned sequel story being quietly dropped; however, such actions added to Price's increasing frustration with the show. Philip Gilbert also made the first of several on-screen appearances as Timus Irnok Mosta, an ambassador from the Galactic Federation who had a hand in building TIM thus sounding alike. Timus was a clone and his brother, Tikno also appears. They would make semi-regular appearances until the final story in 1979, and helped fulfil a clause in Gilbert's contract that he had to be seen or heard at least once every episode. As stated, old enemy Jedikiah made a dramatic return to exact revenge in the last story. It ends with an air of finality as the Tomorrow People (including the just broken out Trisha Conway), having only just survived the encounter (at one point John, Elizabeth and Tikno are violently gunned down and left barely alive), decide to leave Earth for the Galactic Trig with only a vague, haunting promise from Elizabeth that they will return...sometime.
Series Four
By now, Price had become tired of his creation and attempted to end it by killing off the leads at the conclusion to Series 3, but Ruth Boswell made him rewrite it so that they survived. Thames Television had a ratings winner (as well as excellent overseas sales) and insisted he continue the programme, albeit in shorter, staggered seasons from now on. Price only ever allowed one attempt by another writer to work on it solo, with John E. Watkins penning the story "Into the Unknown" broadcast in early 1976. Price was not satisfied with the final episodes and decided from now on he would be sole writer. Having fewer episodes to write every year, Price would have more time to work on his comedic and light-entertainment productions, which he enjoyed more than the demanding sci-fi drama. At the start of the fourth series he attempted to give a boost to the format with the introduction of teenage idol Mike Holoway as Mike Bell. Holoway was the drummer with pop band Flintlock who were the regular house band on Price's You Must Be Joking, and Price hoped that his young charge would be Britain's answer to Donny Osmond or David Cassidy. Mike's arrival swells the ranks of TPs in the Lab to five (Tricia had remained on the Trig, due to Ann Courthoys' departure from the series) which made things look a bit overcrowded, this led to the decision to sack Vaughan-Clarke as Stephen, who ignobly disappears off screen after the season finished and is never even mentioned again. Mike was now very much being touted as the show's hero and with this change, it was noticeable that John and Elizabeth took on a more parental role as both actors entered their mid-20s. Tyso also vanished after the fourth year, but his character had been mostly redundant for some time due to not having been written into scripts that year. His late inclusion was only addressed a couple of weeks before filming started when Price discovered from Lawrence that he was still available to appear in the programme (he had been led to believe that he had moved abroad). This meant Tyso only had limited screen time and very few lines. What scenes Tyso was in he was either the butt of a joke, or in a position where he was rarely pleased to be seen. Anne Curthoys was asked back to play Tricia, but was committed to a daytime soap at Thames.
Series Five
Vic Hughes took over as producer for Series 5, which began transmission in early 1977 and was the only series not to introduce a new Tomorrow person (although the first story does feature a potential TP in doomed Russian teenager, Pavla). All three adventures were two-parters which allowed Price to write them quickly and remove any unwanted excess padding which tended to slow down the action. Mike Holoway was now very much the star of the show as on screen, Mike developed into the resident hero guided by an increasingly parental John and Elizabeth. His band Flintlock even appeared in the closing adventure, "The Heart of Sogguth". From this season on, Price would only be credited as the writer but he retained overall control of the series and was very heavily involved in major decisions.
Series Six
1978 saw changes being made, starting with Elizabeth's absence through most of Series 6 due to Elizabeth Adare's pregnancy (on screen Elizabeth is working on diplomatic missions for the Galactic Federation and appears only briefly on a screen so as to hide the actress's condition). In her place came Hsui Tai, played by Japanese actress Misako Koba, whose poor grasp of English made her hard to understand, and Nicholas Young later recalled that he and other actors found this difficult during production. Koba had no previous acting experience and had been suggested for the role by her actor husband. A new Lab set was introduced with a smaller but now mobile TIM and the jaunting belts were replaced by the rather cheap looking jaunting bands (worn on the wrists). These changes were forced on the production team following a fire at the Thames storerooms. The new Lab acted as both base and home for the Tomorrow People as they were now seen to be sleeping in their own cabins there. It was noticeably smaller than the previous set, which freed up more space in the studio for the designers to utilise on other sets. The 6 episodes were produced sporadically through 1977 (a combination of Price writing scripts as and when it fitted with his other production commitments and a number of strikes at ITV over the year) and finally launched in the Spring of 78. Such was Holoway's popularity that he was featured on the cover of TV Times to promote the start of the season.
Series Seven
Series 7 in late 1978 introduced another Tomorrow person in the form of young Scottish lad Andrew Forbes (Nigel Rhodes). Rhodes had previously worked as an extra on A Much Needed Holiday, but became more known to Price when he worked on his 1977 comedy series, You Can't Be Serious. The young actor was delighted to win the role, as he was a great fan of the show. Andrew is introduced after he starts using his psychic powers to conjure up images of ghosts so as to provide a tourism attraction for the hotel owned by his father. Elizabeth also returned from her year on the Trig.
Series Eight and cancellation
With inflation out of control in the late-1970s, the budget was stretched to breaking point, a factor which was constantly on the mind of producer Vic Hughes. A dispute over the allocation of studio days ended the show in 1979 when Hughes attempted to gain an extra studio day for the planned ninth series (which fell victim to the ITV strike that summer) following numerous problems during the production of "War of the Empires" (the sole four-part adventure that made up series 8) which had been given only four days in studio. This was partially due to a very ambitious script that, with its numerous space battles, was heavily influenced by Star Wars. Also by this point, Price had emigrated to America after being headhunted to help set up children's channel Nickelodeon, and Thames was reluctant to carry on without him. Whatever the reason, it finally vanished after a short repeat run in early 1980.
Cast
TIM (voice of Philip Gilbert) is a biological computer, programmed with an artificially created intelligence, whose tubes are filled with bio-fluid. He was partially built by John, the leader of the Tomorrow People, and was given to them by the Galactic Council. TIM is housed in The Lab, situated in a disused station in the London Underground. TIM often helps out the Tomorrow People by providing vital information, which the telepaths can use in their current adventure. TIM's voice is identical to that of diplomat Timus Irnok Mosta from the Galactic Federation, because Timus' clone-brother Tykno is the premier AI scientist of the Federation and all Federation AI's have their voice.
John (Nicholas Young) – Aged 17, John is the leader of the Tomorrow People. He is an inventor and scientist. He built The Lab and the biological computer, TIM, with some help from the Galactic Council. John was the first Tomorrow Person to "break out" and had no guidance through the process.
Carol (Sammie Winmill) – Along with John and Kenny, Carol had been monitoring Stephen, as he had been unconsciously tuning into their thoughts, via telepathy. When Stephen collapses and is taken to hospital, John sends Carol to help him "break out".
Kenny (Stephen Salmon), at 12, is the youngest of the original four Tomorrow People. According to Carol, he "broke out" when he was very young. He is always left behind to look after The Lab.
Stephen Jameson (Peter Vaughan-Clarke) is the first Tomorrow Person to "break out" on screen. At first he finds it hard to believe that he is a Tomorrow Person, but soon comes to accept this. Like other Tomorrow People, Stephen possesses various psychic abilities. The primary powers of all telepaths are "jaunting", the ability instantaneously to transport oneself from one place to another, telepathy, the ability to read the minds of other Tomorrow People and telekinesis, the ability to move objects with the power of the mind.
Jedikiah (Francis de Wolff and Roger Bizley) is "a fierce, shape-changing alien robot," initially seen (in "The Slaves of Jedikiah") in the service of the "Cyclops" (later discovered to be 'Ranesh'), who uses Jedikiah to capture the Tomorrow People in an effort to use their psi powers to enable the Cyclops' damaged ship to return home. By the end of the serial, Jedikiah had been damaged and jettisoned into space. By the time he is recovered (in "The Medusa Strain"), 500 years had passed, and the damage caused to Jedikiah in the previous story, coupled with this long isolation, had driven the robot insane, possessing a pathological hatred of the Tomorrow People. He has since devoted his existence to their destruction. However, in "The Revenge of Jedikiah", in which the character made his final appearance, he was stripped of his shape-shifting powers by Timus and the Galactic Federation and condemned to labour on Earth forever as a homeless derelict.
Elizabeth M'Bondo – (Elizabeth Adare) Elizabeth is the first addition to the original line-up, introduced at the beginning of the second season. She is a student teacher at Stephen's school and is said to be the same age as John. She often brings a sense of compassion to the Tomorrow People and is one of the few people capable of standing up to John, notably in "The Doomsday Men" when she convinces him to save stranded astronaut Lee, as well as facing down several villains. Towards the end of the series, she becomes more involved in galactic affairs and spends a lot of time at the Galactic Trig, including the whole of season six.
Tyso Boswell – (Dean Lawrence) Tyso is introduced at the start of the third season. He comes from a gypsy background and has a number of younger siblings. The Tomorrow People first encounter him when he is captured by Colonel Masters. He forms a partnership with Stephen in some stories and takes a cheeky attitude towards many of the situations in which the Tomorrow People find themselves.
Patricia Conway – (Anne Curthoys) Tricia is a telepath working for Colonel Masters at the Experimental Weapons Establishment, who appears in "Secret Weapon" and "Revenge of Jedikiah". She is initially at odds with the Tomorrow People, seeking to capture them and force them to work for British Intelligence. After Masters' death, she allies with the Tomorrow People against Jedikiah. She hears Stephen's telepathic cry for help, causing her to break out and jaunt to the lab. Afterwards, she goes to work at the Trig.
Mike Bell – (Mike Holoway) Mike is a working class Cockney who lives with his mother and sister. He is introduced at the start of season four when a group of London criminals try to force him to use his powers to help them commit crimes. Although loyal to the Tomorrow People, he is less willing than some of the others blindly to follow John's orders and they often clash. In later series, he occasionally takes on a leadership role when John and Elizabeth are absent, notably in "War of the Empires".
Pavla Vlasova – (Anulka Dziubinska) Pavla is a Russian telepath who appears in "The Dirtiest Business". She has been abducted by the KGB and forced to work for them, and escapes from her handlers during a trip to London. The Tomorrow People try to find and help her but she is killed when the KGB detonate a micro-explosive planted in her body, to prevent her giving away their secrets.
Hsui Tai – (Misako Koba) Hsui Tai is a girl in her mid teens around the same age as Mike, introduced at the start of the sixth season. She is one of the living child goddesses worshipped by a sect of Chinese monks, who are sacrificed and supposedly reincarnated when they reach adulthood. After John and Mike put an end to the practice, Hsui Tai joins them in the lab. She adapts reasonably well to western ways but still encounters cultural difficulties on occasion.
Andrew Forbes – (Nigel Rhodes) Andrew is a Scottish boy who lives in a hotel run by his father. He gains the ability to project illusions and uses them to convince people the hotel is haunted in order to attract guests. His father initially believes he is possessed by a demon until the Tomorrow People get in touch and explain what Andrew is. Afterwards, he splits his time between the Tomorrow People and helping his father at the hotel.
Peter - (Richard Speight) – Peter is a Telepath from the 26th century, who refers to the current Tomorrow People as Homo novus (New man). Appearing as a teenaged boy, it is later revealed that he is 163 years old.
Timus – (Philip Gilbert) Timus Irnok Mosta is a maverick Galactic Federation diplomat and ally of the Tomorrow People. As revealed in the episode "Worlds Apart", Timus has sixty-four cloned brothers, including Tikno, who is also an ally of the Tomorrow People and the mentioned, but unseen Timon, who was the creator of TIM.
Zenon – (Stephen Jack) Zenon is the grandfather of Peter who appears in "A Rift in Time". Stephen encounters him while looking for Peter and Zenon gives him the ability to travel into the past.
Ginger 'Ginge' Harding – (Michael Standing) Ginge is the leader of a biker gang who are hired by Jedikiah. He initially hunts the Tomorrow People but when he learns Jedikiah's true nature he changes sides. He is a regular fixture at the lab during the first season and often helps the Tomorrow People out with their problems. He is physically strong but occasionally shows a lack of intelligence.
Lefty – (Derek Crewe) Lefty is Ginger's sidekick. Like him, he is allied first with Jedikiah and then the Tomorrow People. He is somewhat dimwitted but occasionally seems more sensible than Ginge. He appears in "The Slaves of Jedikiah" and "The Vanishing Earth".
Chris Harding – (Chris Chittell) Chris is Ginger's younger brother, who replaces him as the Tomorrow People's human ally. Although often used for comic relief, he is quite intelligent, providing the solution to a problem on occasion notably in "Secret Weapon", and accompanies the Tomorrow People on a trip back in time in "A Rift in Time". He disappears after the first story of season three.
Professor Cawston''' – (Bryan Stanyon) Cawston is a parapsychology professor who Stephen shows some of his powers to in order to get access to a vase kept at his university. He later discovers Tyso, who is in the process of breaking out, and unwittingly brings him to the attention of Colonel Masters. The Tomorrow People contact him and explain who they are, and he becomes their ally against Masters and later Jedikiah.
Merchandise
A comic-strip version, based on the original series, was also produced, written by Angus P. Allan and printed in TV comic Look-In that ran somewhat concurrently with the 1970s series. Piccolo Books also released five tie-in novels during the seventies: The Visitor (1973), Three into Three (1974), Four into Three (1975), One Law (1976) and Lost Gods (1977). In 1978, there was also a children's annual. "The Visitor" was written before production began on the series and offers a glimpse of some of the original ideas for the show that never made it to screen. Most interesting is that the Tomorrow People contact TIM via wrist communicators, as the computer is non-telepathic while the characters of Ginge and Lefty are portrayed as much younger characters than they were on screen. Also the Lab is accessed from the back of a regular Tube station.
Revivals
1990s series: (1992–1995)
Price produced the 1990s revival of The Tomorrow People for Tetra Films (an independent production company, mostly comprising the former children's department at Thames Television) in association with the Thames-owned American company Reeves Entertainment for Thames and Nickelodeon between 1992 and 1995 (broadcast by Central in 1994 and 1995 on ITV as Thames had lost its franchise at the end of 1992). After some pressure from executives, Price decided to start with a blank slate and so the show was almost completely different from its predecessor. The original cast, characters, and music were not used. The new series incorporated a multi-national cast to ensure that worldwide syndication sales would be easier to obtain.
The distinctive belt buckles were omitted, as the new Tomorrow People were able to teleport without them. The non-lethal stun guns and other gadgetry were also done away with. The new Tomorrow People relied more on their wits and powers to get out of trouble.
There remain some analogies, however. The Lab was replaced by a psychic spaceship in the South Pacific to which Tomorrow People are drawn when they "break out". TIM is replaced by an ostensibly mute computer that is part of the alien ship. The visual effects were improved considerably by effects artist Clive Davis compared to the original series, along with sets.
The lead role of Adam Newman was given to Kristian Schmid, who at the time was famous in the UK for his regular role in Neighbours. The other original stars were Kristen Ariza as Lisa Davies, Adam Pearce (who had no previous acting experience) as Kevin Wilson and Christian Tessier as Kevin's American friend Marmaduke "Megabyte" Damon. The 1992 season consisted of a single five-part story written by Price, which had no on-screen title but was named as "The Origin Story" in the DVD release. Adam is newly broken out as the series begins with Lisa and Kevin breaking out simultaneously in the first episode. Megabyte also breaks out in the last episode of the story. This was the longest story since "The Blue and the Green" in the second season of the 1970s show and as a result there was more of the comedy setpieces which had been minimised in the later seasons of the earlier show. The plotline borrowed heavily from the 1975 story "Secret Weapon", even reusing the name of that story's villain Colonel Masters, and involved the intelligence services pursuing the Tomorrow People in order to use them for their own ends. The story also introduced Jeff Harding as Megabyte's father General Damon, an American officer stationed in the United Kingdom, who became a regular ally to the Tomorrow People.
The second season was filmed in 1993 and began transmitting in January 1994, with Price now credited as executive producer and the writing handed over to Grant Cathro and Lee Pressman, who had previously experience writing CITV's other children's fantasy series T-Bag and Mike and Angelo. The seasons were expanded to ten episodes, comprising two five-part stories. Cathro and Pressman plotted the stories together then scripted one each (for the second season they were credited as co-writers, for the third they were only credited on the story they scripted). They chose to power down the Tomorrow People slightly, since the first story had shown Lisa reviving from the dead at one point. The lengthy scenes on the island where the ship was located from the first season were dropped, with the ship exterior only seen in stock establishing shots and the Tomorrow People now teleporting directly into the ship when they broke out rather than the ocean around it.
Lisa was dropped without explanation and Kevin's role was severely reduced, with him only appearing in three episodes of the first story and spending most of his time comatose before also being dropped with no explanation. As a result, the series now focused on Adam and Megabyte, two characters who had not interacted in the first season, and their relationship soon mirrored than between John and Stephen in the original series. Breaking out in the opening episode of the season was Ami Jackson, played by Naomie Harris. Her mother, played by Sally Sagoe, would have small roles in the remaining stories, initially trying to stop Ami spending time with the Tomorrow People before accepting her need to use her powers to help others. The first story of the second season, "The Culex Experiment", guest starred Jean Marsh as the villainous Doctor Culex.
The third season debuted the following year: The opening story, "The Rameses Connection", guest starred Christopher Lee as lead villain Sam Rees/Rameses. It saw the first example of the phrase "breaking out" being used and of the Tomorrow People's powers being blocked, when Rameses prevents Adam from teleporting, both key features of the 1970s show. The second story, "The Living Stones", only featured Ami in a small role in the first episode, with her absence explained as her being on holiday with her mother. Instead, Jade Weston, a minor character from "The Culex Experiment" played by Alexandra Milman, was brought back to accompany Adam and Megabyte and broke out as a Tomorrow Person in the last episode. This story featured the first use of aliens in the 1990s series, as the Tomorrow People battled a group of alien spores which had crashed near a village and possessed most of the villagers. Shortly after this, it was announced that the show would not be returning for a fourth season.
Audio revival
In 2001, Big Finish Productions launched a series of new audio plays based on the original series, produced by Nigel Fairs. Nicholas Young and Philip Gilbert reprised their roles as John and TIM, with Helen Goldwyn and James Daniel Wilson appearing as Elena and Paul, the new Tomorrow People. Some releases also feature other original cast members, such as Peter Vaughan-Clarke, Elizabeth Adare and Mike Holoway (notably Trigonometry). Trevor Littledale took over the role of TIM in the audio series from The Warlock's Dance onwards after Philip Gilbert's death in 2004.
Five series were produced of the audio series. It was cancelled in December 2007 because of the discontinuation of a licensing arrangement with Fremantle Media Enterprises. CDs of the series were permanently withdrawn from sale on 7 January 2008. However, the CDs are often still available from online sellers such as Amazon and eBay, and at science fiction conventions.
2013 American series
In November 2012, Deadline Hollywood announced that Julie Plec and Greg Berlanti had obtained the rights to The Tomorrow People and commissioned a pilot written by Phil Klemmer. This occurred after a similar rights option expired to an aborted attempt two years previously.
It was announced on 28 January 2013 that the revival had received a pilot order from The CW Television Network. On 21 February 2013, Australian actor Luke Mitchell was cast for the pilot as John Young.
The pilot was picked up as a series on 9 May 2013. It aired on Wednesdays in the 9:00 pm Eastern/8:00 pm Central timeslot following Arrow. On 17 March 2014, The Tomorrow People moved to a permanent Monday night time slot.
On 8 May 2014, just one day shy of its first anniversary of being picked up by the CW, the channel declined to renew The Tomorrow People for a second season.
Documentaries
In October 2005, Fantom Films and First Time Films released the 1997 documentary about the series entitled Beyond Tomorrow. The documentary features interviews with cast members from the original series, including Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen), Sammie Winmill (Carol), Elizabeth Adare (Liz), Dean Lawrence (Tyso), Mike Holoway (Mike) and Philip Gilbert.
The following year, Fantom Films released a second DVD discussing the 1990s series with writers Lee Pressman and Grant Cathro, entitled Re-inventing The Tomorrow People.
Bibliography
Price, Roger & Gregory, Julian (1973). The Tomorrow People in "The Visitor". London: Piccolo TV Times.
Price, Roger (1974). The Tomorrow People in "Three in Three". London. Piccolo TV Times.
Price, Roger (1975). The Tomorrow People in "Four into Three". London. Piccolo TV Times.
Price, Roger (1976). The Tomorrow People in "One Law". London. Piccolo TV Times.
Price, Roger (1979). The Tomorrow People in "The Lost Gods" with "Hitler's Last Secret" and "The Thargon Menace". London. Piccolo TV Times.
Unknown (1978). The Tomorrow People Annual 1979. Knutsford. Stafford Pemberton.
Robinson, Nigel (1995). The Tomorrow People: The Culex Experiment. London. Boxtree.
Robinson, Nigel (1995). The Tomorrow People: Monsoon Man. London. Boxtree.
Robinson, Nigel (1995). The Tomorrow People: The Rameses Connection. London. Sapling.
Robinson, Nigel (1995). The Tomorrow People: The Living Stones. London. Sapling.
Davidson, Andy (2013). Jaunt: An Unofficial Guide to the Tomorrow People. London. Miwk.
Davidson, Andy (2022). Jaunt. A Viewer's Guide to the Tomorrow People''. London. Ten Acre Films.
References
External links
1973 series
The Tomorrow People from Worst to Best
1992 series
2013 series
ITV television dramas
ITV children's television shows
1970s British children's television series
1990s American science fiction television series
1980s Nickelodeon original programming
Human-derived fictional species
1973 British television series debuts
1979 British television series endings
1992 British television series debuts
1995 British television series endings
Television shows set in London
Television series by FremantleMedia Kids & Family
Television shows produced by Thames Television
British science fiction television shows
British superhero television series
1970s British science fiction television series
1990s British science fiction television series
1990s American drama television series
English-language television shows
Fictional telepaths
Evolution in popular culture
Television shows shot at Teddington Studios |
423772 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PolyGram | PolyGram | PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a holding for their record companies, and was renamed "PolyGram" in 1972. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records and the Philips interest Phonogram Records. The company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disc gramophone, Emil Berliner.
Later on, PolyGram expanded into the largest global entertainment company, creating film and television divisions. In May 1998, it was sold to the alcoholic distiller Seagram which owned film, television and music company Universal Studios. PolyGram was thereby folded into Universal Music Group, and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was folded into Universal Pictures, which had been both Seagram successors of MCA Inc. When the newly formed entertainment division of Seagram faced financial difficulties, it was sold to Vivendi, and MCA became known as Universal Studios, as Seagram ceased to exist. Vivendi remains the majority owner of the Universal Music Group (while the film and television division was sold to NBCUniversal) until 2021. In February 2017, UMG revived the company under the name of PolyGram Entertainment, which currently serves as their film and television division.
History
Hollandsche Decca Distributie (HDD), 1929–1950
In 1929, Decca Records (London) licensed record shop owner H.W. Van Zoelen as a distributor in the Netherlands. By 1931, his company Hollandsche Decca Distributie (HDD) had become exclusive Decca distributor for all of the Netherlands and its colonies. Over the course of the 1930s, HDD put together its own facilities for A&R, recording, and manufacturing.
HDD was commercially successful during World War II because of the absence of American and British competition. Van Zoelen wanted to sell to Philips so that HDD would have sufficient financial backing when their major competitors returned after the war. This led Philips to purchase HDD in 1942.
In the mid 20th century, the majority of large recording companies manufactured both gramophones and records; Philips CEO Anton Philips noted the risk in creating gramophones without an interest in music recording and record manufacture, and that Radio Corporation of America (RCA) had merged with the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1929 for this reason. Philips' labs were developing magnetic tape and LPs, and they could support eventual new formats, although other record companies were notably unenthusiastic about experimenting with new formats.
After the war, Philips built a large factory in Doetinchem to produce 78 rpm records. Recording took place in Hilversum, whereas development took place in Eindhoven.
Philips Phonografische Industrie (PPI), 1950–1962
In the 1940s, the record business was spread out within Philips: research in the Eindhoven labs, development elsewhere in Eindhoven, recording in Hilversum, manufacturing in Doetinchem, distribution from Amsterdam, and exports from Eindhoven. During the late 1940s, Philips combined its various music businesses into Philips Phonografische Industrie (PPI), a wholly owned subsidiary.
PPI's early growth was based on alliances. A merger was first proposed with Decca of London in late 1945, but was rejected by Edward Lewis, Decca's owner. (PolyGram finally acquired Decca in 1980.)
In the early 1950s, Philips set itself the goal of making PPI the largest record company in Europe.
PPI's second attempt at a merger was with Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (DGG). DGG, owned by Siemens AG, and well known for its classical repertoire, had been the German licensee for Decca from 1935. DGG also owned Polydor Records. Shortly after PPI was founded it had made a formal alliance with DGG to manufacture each other's records, coordinate releases, and refrain from poaching each other's artists or bidding against each other for new talent. PPI and DGG finally merged in 1962.
The alliance with DGG still left PPI without repertoire in Britain or the United States. But in 1951, after Columbia had failed to renew its international distribution agreement with EMI, PPI agreed to distribute Columbia recordings outside the United States. Columbia became PPI's distributor within the US. This agreement ran until 1961 when Columbia set up its own European network. PPI signed a worldwide distribution deal with Mercury Records in 1961. PPI's parent company Philips, through its U.S. affiliate Consolidated Electronics Industries Corp (a.k.a. Conelco), acquired Mercury in 1962.
PPI built or bought factories in smaller countries. In 1962, PPI had a large factory in Baarn and factories in France, Britain, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Italy, Egypt, Nigeria, and Brazil.
PPI played an important role in the introduction of the long-playing vinyl record to Europe. Columbia introduced their LP record in 1948, and Philips presented its first LP at a record retailers' convention in 1949. Philips' commitment to LP technology was an important factor in its 1951–1961 deal with Columbia.
GPG and PolyGram, 1962–1980
In 1962, PPI and DGG formed the Grammophon-Philips Group (GPG) as a joint-venture holding company, with Philips taking a 50% share in DGG and Siemens a 50% share in PPI. In 1971, the UK record labels of Philips, Fontana, Mercury, and Vertigo were amalgamated into a new company called Phonogram, Ltd. In 1972, Grammophon-Philips Group reorganized all its operations and was renamed The PolyGram Group (in some countries, like Argentina, its name was Phonogram), of which Philips and Siemens each owned 50%. In 1977, both organizations merged operationally, integrating the recording, manufacturing, distribution and marketing into a single organization.
The various record labels within PolyGram continued to operate separately. PolyGram gave its labels, as A&R organizations, great autonomy.
After the merger, PolyGram began to move into the US and UK markets, and did so by a process of both formation and acquisition: Polydor Records established its American operations, Polydor Incorporated in 1969, Mercury Record Productions (US) was acquired in 1972 from sister company North American Philips Corp., and became Phonogram, Inc. MGM Records and Verve (US) were acquired in 1972. Subsequent PolyGram acquisitions included those of RSO (UK) in 1975, a 50% stake in Casablanca (US) in 1977 (with the remaining 50% in 1980), Pickwick in 1978, and Decca (UK) in 1980 (the latter acquisition basically brought PolyGram full circle, see the HDD section above). PolyGram acquired United Distribution Corporation (UDC) in 1973, and changed its name to Phonodisc, Inc., and signed international distribution deals with MCA and 20th Century Records in 1976.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Philips had been at work on a new consumer magnetic tape format for music. The Philips Compact Cassette was introduced in 1963. It was small and could play longer than an LP. In 1965 the cassette accounted for 3% of revenues, growing in 1968 to 8% and in 1970 to 10.6%.
In the late 1960s, and through the 1970s, GPG/PolyGram diversified into film and television production and home video. RSO's successes included Saturday Night Fever and Grease. PolyGram's highly successful marketing during the disco craze included the Casablanca FilmWorks production Thank God It's Friday (1978) and its associated soundtrack. During the boom in disco, PolyGram's US market share had grown from 5% to 20%. This can also be attributed to multi-million selling albums and 45s by the Bee Gees, Donna Summer, the Village People, Andy Gibb, Kool & the Gang, and rock band Kiss. For a short while in the late 1970s, it was the world's largest record company.
In 1969, PolyGram established a direct mail-order business in the UK, Britannia Music Club, which ran till 2007.
Reorganization, 1980–1999
Before 1978, PolyGram was losing money. When US operations were running at full capacity, PolyGram expanded aggressively, and would press large quantities of records without knowing the demand. In late 1979, PolyGram was caught off guard by the sudden end of the popularity of disco music, leaving it with an underutilized distribution network, profligate labels, and over optimistic product orders. PolyGram's Casablanca label was known for management spending on lavish industry parties and luxury cars. After 1980, PolyGram's losses had spiraled upwards of US$220 million.
Another contributing factor to PolyGram's financial woes was the massive failure of the big budget musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (1978). The film starred the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton at the height of their popularity, and featured the Beatles covers by them as well as Aerosmith, Billy Preston, and Earth, Wind & Fire. The film was highly anticipated to surpass the box office success of both the Saturday Night Fever and Grease, mostly due to its popular music stars. The soundtrack LP, based on only advance orders, was released triple platinum. However, the movie was released to poor reviews and died at the box office. Despite its triple platinum start, the soundtrack LP's sales bombed after the film's release. In turn, record dealers flooded PolyGram with returned LPs. The resulting losses nearly wiped out the profits the company had made on both the Saturday Night Fever and Grease soundtracks. The company took further loses when the disco craze ended in 1979 and record sales for both the Bee Gees and Casablanca's Village People plummeted. PolyGram also experienced losses with the defection of Casablanca's Donna Summer to newly formed Geffen Records as well as the dropping of Andy Gibb, whose personal problems with cocaine and alcohol began to affect his recording career, from RSO. Summer and the Bee Gees also had legal disputes with their labels which further complicated matters. Summer ended her contract with PolyGram in 1980, and was awarded the rights to her songwriting catalog by the courts; she owed them one more album, and finished out her contract by recording her album She Works Hard For The Money (from which the title track was a huge hit in 1983).
In 1980, after PolyGram bought the other 50% of Casablanca Records and Filmworks, PolyGram renamed its existing Casablanca Records & Filmworks unit as PolyGram Pictures with Peter Guber becoming chairman of the company. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, PolyGram continued to invest in a diversified film unit with the purchases of individual production companies.
In 1981, Philips executive Jan Timmer became a member of the Group Management of PolyGram and was appointed president and chief executive officer of newly formed parent company, PolyGram International Ltd. in 1983. He cut the workforce from 13,000 to 7,000, reduced PolyGram's LP and cassette plants from eighteen to five, and decreased the company's dependence on superstars by spreading the repertoire across different genres and nurturing national and regional talent. Also by 1983, PolyGram's U.S. roster of labels included:
Polydor
Mercury
London
London/FFRR
Casablanca (until 1986, later to be reincarnated in 1994)
RSO
De-Lite
Riva
Threshold (owned by the Moody Blues)
Total Experience (founded by Lonnie Simmons, from 1981 to 1984)
Atlanta Artists (founded by Cameo lead singer Larry Blackmon)
...which were all consolidated into PolyGram Records, Inc. (now UMG Recordings, Inc.) In 1981, PolyGram launched domestic television syndication unit PolyGram Television (unrelated to the latter day incarnation that became Universal Worldwide Television in 1997), but it was soon folded after two years.
Under its newly reorganized form, PolyGram decided to discontinue Philips as a pop and rock label in the UK and much of Europe, though it was still frequently issued records in France and South East Asia, where it issued many albums and singles by Chinese and Hong Kong pop artists. The majority of PolyGram's rock and pop music signings went to Mercury and Polydor. Philips became part of PolyGram Classics as a classical music label along with Decca Records and Deutsche Grammophon. By 1985, PolyGram had returned to profitability.
Wing Records was reincarnated in 1987 and became a very popular label over the following years, spawning the careers of Tony! Toni! Toné! and former Miss America, Vanessa Williams; the label was discontinued in the mid-1990s. Fontana was revived in the U.S. in 1989, but only for a short while. Today, Fontana Distribution is an independent label distribution unit of Universal Music Group. Vertigo Records still remained a rare U.S. PolyGram label, as most of its music was from Europe.
In April 1982, PolyGram assumed operational and managerial control of 20th Century Fox Records from its similarly named parent, which had just recently been bought out by oil magnate Marvin Davis, who was not interested in keeping the record company. The assets of the former 20th Century Fox Records were fully acquired by the firm in July 1982, and subsequently were consolidated with the Casablanca label.
After an attempted 1983 merger with Warner Elektra Atlantic failed, Philips bought 40% of PolyGram from Siemens, acquiring the remaining 10% in 1987.
In 1985, former CBS and Columbia executive Dick Asher was named president and CEO of PolyGram. Asher was formerly the attorney for Don Kirshner's Aldon Music music publishing company.
The CD, invented by Philips and Sony, helped greatly in boosting the company's sales and market share. PolyGram's strength in classical music helped greatly, as many of the CD's early adopters were classical music lovers. Total US sales of CDs were $1 million in 1983, $334 million in 1990 and $943 million in 2000. Total UK sales were $300,000 in 1983, $51 million in 1990 and $202 million in 2000. The CD increased PolyGram's profit margin from 4-6% in the mid-1980s to 7-9% by the early 1990s. As well, videos were distributed by PolyGram Video.
In 1988, Philips acquired the remaining 50% of PolyGram from long-time partner Siemens and later in 1989, floated 16% of PolyGram on the Amsterdam stock exchange, valuing the whole company at $5.6 billion. PolyGram embarked on a new program of acquisitions, including A&M and Island Records in 1989, Swedish company Polar Music which held the rights to the ABBA catalogue, Motown and Def Jam in 1994 and Rodven (Venezuela) in 1995.
In 1990, after acquiring both Island and A&M, Alain Levy, (then) executive vice-president of PolyGram N.V., re-organized the U.S. operations of PolyGram Records, Inc. into a new expanded conglomerate: PolyGram Group Distribution, Inc. In addition to overseeing the sales, marketing, manufacturing and distribution of music and video products created by PolyGram, PGD was also responsible for supervising a number of other divisions within PolyGram (U.S.) such as: PolyGram Music Group, PolyGram Video, PolyMedia, PolyGram Special Markets, PolyGram Merchandising, Independent Label Sales (ILS) and New Media & Business Development.
PolyGram and Granada TV formed a joint venture, Big Picture Productions, in 1990 as a music programing firm which, at Cannes in 1990, purchased exclusive international distribution rights to Brown Sugar (The two-hour special featured black female performers and was hosted by Billy Dee Williams) from the New York–based Gene David Group.
In June 1991, Alain Levy was promoted to worldwide president and CEO of PolyGram N.V.
In 1993, PolyGram purchased the video arm of Virgin Group from General Electric Capital for $5.6 million and remodeled the label as Vision Video ltd.
In 1995, PolyGram purchased ITC Entertainment for $156 million.
Sale to Seagram and divestation (1998–1999)
On May 22, 1998, Philips announced that they would sell PolyGram to Seagram for $10 billion. Alain Levy resigned as CEO of PolyGram on June 23 to prepare for the merger, and the deal was closed on December 10, 1998, with PolyGram's operations folding into Universal Pictures and Universal Music Group.
However, Seagram was only interested in PolyGram's music division, and in October 1998 they announced that they would begin divesting PolyGram's entertainment assets, while the remainder would be folded into Universal. Prior to this announcement, the company announced the sale of their 75% stake in children's distributor Abbey Home Entertainment back to its original founders. On October 23, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer agreed to purchase PolyGram Filmed Entertainment's pre-April 1996 library for $250 Million, which included over 1,300 films from various assets PolyGram had acquired within that point. on January 19, 1999, ITC Entertainment's assets were sold to Carlton Communications for £91 million. On April 8, 1999, USA Networks announced they would purchase the domestic distribution arm of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and the US operations of PolyGram Video, among other assets. After the sale, the divisions were renamed USA Films and USA Home Entertainment respectively. The assets of Slash Records and London Records were sold to Warner Music Group. What remained of PolyGram was merged into Universal Music Group and Universal Pictures.
On February 10, 1999, Universal announced that they would exit out of their CIC Video and United International Pictures ventures with Paramount Pictures and rebrand the international divisions of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and PolyGram Video under the Universal name. While the home video division was successfully rebranded (with CIC rebranding under the Paramount umbrella in 2000), the rebranded theatrical division did not, as after films from the rebranded Universal Pictures International flopped at the box office, the company announced in October 1999 that they would downgrade their operations to the home video market only and renew their UIP deal with Paramount for five years, with the remains of PolyGram's theatrical assets merging and folding into United International Pictures. Mickey Blue Eyes was the last film distributed under the ex-PolyGram unit.
The PolyGram name survives via reissue of music under the Polydor Records label as well as a publishing arm of Universal Music Publishing Group. The Japanese branches of the PolyGram labels that were absorbed to form Universal Music Japan and were rebranded: Polydor remained until 2002, when it merged with the Universal label to form Universal J, Kitty Records and Mercury remained until 2000, when they merged and became the short-lived Kitty MME, which later in 2002, moved some artists to Universal J, and in 2004, Kitty MME became Universal Sigma.
PolyGram Entertainment
Universal Music Group (UMG) had been dabbling in the documentary field, having a hand in producing the 2015 Amy Winehouse documentary, Amy, as well as HBO's Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck. In January 2017, UMG hired David Blackman to head its newly formed film and TV unit, reporting to Universal Music Publishing Group chairman/CEO Jody Gerson and UMG Executive Vice President Michele Anthony.
PolyGram Entertainment was relaunched on February 11, 2017, as a film and television unit of Universal Music Group. Before the announcement, the revived PolyGram co-distributed with StudioCanal on September 15, 2016, the documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week. Polygram had on its slate as its first production The Story of Motown (a documentary about the record label's cultural and historical effects). Also on its slate was the co-production and financing of Mystify (a biography of INXS frontman Michael Hutchence).
Republic Records, in working with PolyGram, appointed its first executive vice-president of film & television on July 17, 2017, to oversee film and TV projects and its Federal Films initiative. On June 5, 2018, the company announced the appointment of Daniel Inkeles to the post of Vice President, Scripted Film & Television, who moved over from a sister Vivendi company, StudioCanal, to UMG.
Lionsgate and PolyGram agreed to a multiyear first-look television deal on August 6, 2018, to develop projects for TV from UMG's portfolio of labels, artists and music, with UMG issuing the corresponding soundtracks. Universal Music Group agreed on April 17, 2019, to allow Wondery a license to use the UMG music catalog and develop story podcasts of UMG artists, which would possibly be adapted for TV or film projects. Wondery would work with all UMG labels and with its PolyGram Entertainment film and TV production unit.
Films
TV series
Notable labels
A&M Records (acquired in October 1989)
Def Jam Recordings (acquired in June 1994)
Deutsche Grammophon
Fontana Records
Island Records (acquired in August 1989)
London Records
Mercury Records
Motown (distribution in September 1991 and acquired in August 1993)
Philips Records
Phonogram Inc.
Polydor Records
Total Experience Records
Vertigo Records
See also
List of record labels
Working Title Films
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
Chocolate City Records
Sources
Bakker, Gerben. "The Making of a Music Multinational: The International Strategy of PolyGram, 1945-1988." Business History Review 80:1 (Spring 2006), pp. 81–123. (preprint)
References
External links
Official Website
American record labels
Philips
Siemens
Record labels established in 1929
Record labels established in 1962
Record labels disestablished in 1999
Re-established companies
Universal Music Group
Universal Pictures
Film production companies of the United Kingdom
Film production companies of the Netherlands
Film production companies of the United States
Mass media companies established in 1929
Dutch companies established in 1929
Dutch companies disestablished in 1999
Companies established in 2017 |
Subsets and Splits